Message publishing with prohibited or restricted content removal

ABSTRACT

Publishing of a message that is free of prohibited or restricted content by a message publishing system that is provided with criteria concerning acceptable content. A message is received at the message publishing system, is processed by a processor to detect any prohibited or restricted items in the message which are outside of the criteria of the acceptable content, and the prohibited or restricted content is removed in response to the detection of the prohibited or restricted items in the message. Either the message or only a remainder of the message which is free of the prohibited or restricted content is published in accordance with the criteria provided to the message publishing system.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation patent application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/711,581, filed Feb. 24, 2010, now allowed, whichis a continuation patent application of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/567,977, filed Sep. 28, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,698,372, which is acontinuation patent application of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/356,526, filed Feb. 16, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,596,606, issuedSep. 29, 2009 which is a continuation-in-part patent application of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/523,274, filed Mar. 10, 2000, now U.S.Pat. No. 7,032,030, issued Apr. 18, 2006 which claims the benefit ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/123,821, filed Mar. 11, 1999, eachof which is hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of Invention

This invention relates to the electronic publication of a message,specifically to a system and method that easily enables a message to bereviewed by a mass audience.

2. Description of Prior Art

Various methods exist to publish a message that allows a large number ofpeople to review it. For example, television and radio can conveymessages to a mass number of people tuned into their respectivebroadcast. However, this type of publishing requires the people'sattention at the moment the message is transmitted. If a person is nottuned into the broadcast, or is not paying attention when it istransmitted, the message will not be conveyed. This type of publishingis often referred to as Pushing, meaning that the message is pushed out(transmitted) even if no one is listening or requested the message. Amajor disadvantage of pushing is the inability for a person toimmediately retrieve a specific message when they desire it. Often aperson must wait through many undesired messages before the desiredmessage is received. The on-demand method of publishing solves thisproblem by allowing a person to request (demand), then immediatelyreceive the requested message when it is convenient or desired to do so.To accomplish this, on-demand publishing requires a two-waycommunication path between the sender of the message and the requestorof the message. One communication direction is used by the requestor toinform the message sender that a particular message is desired, and theother direction is used to send the message to the requestor. On-demandservices have existed for many years. Services such as fax-on-demand andairline flight information systems all use a form of on-demandpublishing. Some common message types that are published in an on-demandfashion include visual, textual and audio messages.

There are two common forms of on-demand publishing used for audiomessages. Both rely on the use of pre-recorded or synthesized audio, butdiffer in the method they allow reviewers to listen to the message. Thefirst method requires the audio message to reside on equipment connectedto the telephone network. Requestors wishing to hear the message wouldsimply dial a telephone number serviced by the equipment, and theequipment would announce the message to the caller. In order to play anaudio message for more then one simultaneous caller, multiple telephonelines and associated playback equipment are needed to handle the desirednumber of simultaneous incoming calls. Obviously, this can become veryexpensive and difficult to implement, especially when the number ofsimultaneous callers exceeds a few hundred.

The second method of on-demand audio publishing uses the Internet todistribute an audio message. Typically, a webpage will contain areference or hyperlink to the audio message file. When a requestorselects the reference, the audio message is sent to the requestor andplayed on the requestors' multimedia PC. Since webpages are typicallystored on Internet servers that are designed to handle thousands or evenmillions of simultaneous requests, a single audio message can bereviewed by a large group of requestors at the same time. However, it isa time consuming and difficult task to put an audio message on awebpage. It includes many steps, which require special software, acomputer, and the technical expertise to perform the required steps.

Another publishing method exists that is somewhat between the push andon-demand publishing methologies. Fax broadcasting uses such a method.Fax broadcasting is the sending of a single fax to many recipients. Therecipients typically request to be included in a broadcast list (a listof recipients that are to receive the broadcasted fax). In a sense, theyhave “demanded” the fax. Since most fax machines are left powered on andready to receiving a fax at any time, it can give the sending faxmachine its full attention whenever a fax is being “broadcasted” to it.Most fax machines also print out or store the faxes they receive,allowing the user of the receiving fax machine to review the broadcastedfax when it is convenient to do so. However, fax broadcasting hasseveral major disadvantages. Since a typical fax transmission takes afew minutes to complete, the time required to send a fax to ten thousandrecipients could easily take hours or days to complete. To reduce thistime, multiple fax devices can be used concurrently, with each faxdevice sending to a different recipient. This allows the sending of thefax to multiple recipients in the same time as it takes for a single faxdevice to send one fax to one recipient. Even with multiple fax devices,such a system could still be time consuming and costly to operate andmaintain. Another potential disadvantage with fax broadcasting existswith documents such as price lists. Since price lists are typicallyupdated periodically, there exists the potential for a reviewer toaccidentally view an old or outdated price list because the reviewer maynot know a more current list has been broadcasted or they may be unableto find it. In addition, since most fax machines print out the receivedfaxes on paper even if they are never viewed, a large quantity of paperis consumed and often wasted when broadcasting a fax. In addition,because most fax machines immediately printout any received faxes,confidential documents are often compromised because other people maysee the message before it is delivered to the intended recipient orwhile the message remains next to the fax machine.

The Internet has become a popular source for information and anexcellent example of on-demand publishing. Information and messages,often called ‘content’, can be published on the Internet World Wide Web(WWW) by placing them on a ‘webpage’. Once connected to the Internet, aperson using a web browser can visit the various locations on the WWWand view all the information and messages contained on its manywebpages. To help find what they are looking for, people often usesearch engines to search for various keywords or phrases related to thetopic of interest. Because the Internet is always ‘running’, theinformation and messages contained on the webpages are typicallyavailable for review at any time. Product information, news, recipes,travel directions, store hours, music, software and other informationand items are all available on demand, at any time of the day or night.

However, publishing a message on the Internet can be a daunting task.Currently, there exists two main ways to publish information on theInternet. The first method requires the publisher to own or have accessto a computer, web publishing software, an Internet web server and havethe technical knowledge to use all of these items. These requirementsseverely limit the number of people that can publish content on theInternet. Furthermore, even if someone possessed the equipment andtechnical knowledge to use web publishing software, they are limited tothe features, capabilities and the manner by which the web publishingsoftware operates. A user can not simply use any software program tocreate and publish content on the Internet. The software program must bespecifically capable of working with webpages (i.e. HTML-type files).

The second method involves the hiring of someone skilled in the art ofweb publishing (often referred to as a webmaster) to create, publish andmaintain the content for you. This method can be very expensive, rangingfrom hundreds to thousands of dollars. In addition, webmasters typicallycharge for each and every change that you want made to your webpage(s).With either method, the process can be time consuming and expensive,denying many people the benefits of publishing a message on the Internetcan bring.

Various systems have been developed that allow a message to be reviewedon the Internet. Once such system is described in U.S. Pat. No.5,675,507 Charles R. Bobo, II “Message Storage and Delivery System”.This patent describes an invention that allows a user ‘on the go’ toreview their own personal inbox of faxes and voice mail messages using aweb browser. However, this invention is designed in a many-to-oneconfiguration. Meaning, many third parties (friends, colleagues,clients, anyone, etc) can send a fax or leave a voice message for theone user of the invention. No one other than the single user can reviewthe messages because the invention purposely restricts such review tojust the single inbox owner for privacy purposes. Even if the reviewingsecurity was removed from the invention so anyone can review themessages, the inventions' lack of security when accepting messages wouldallow any unauthorized person to post an undesirable message in anyone'sinbox.

There are a few software programs available that use optical scanners toenter documents into a document imaging system and then make thedocuments available for viewing on the Internet using a web browser. Notonly do these programs not handle audio messages, they are typicallyvery expensive and require the user to own one or more computers andhave the technical expertise to operate and maintain the entire system.In addition, the user must be physically in front of and using the PCrunning the document management software to publish a document. Thisissue alone severely limits the number of people that can use it topublish documents on the Internet.

An additional prior art exists (U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,883 “HypertextDocument Transport Mechanism for Firewall-compatible DistributedWorld-Wide Web Publishing”, Conley B. King Jr.) that allows a user topublish webpages by first packing them into an email and sending theemail to a special web server that unpacks the hypertext files andplaces them in a memory area on a world-wide web server. This method notonly requires the sender to have the necessary tools and skills tocreate the webpage, but they must also create the email in a specialformat that is required by the receiving server machine.

Another prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,989 “Method and apparatus foradding and altering content on websites”) describes an invention thatallows a non-technical person to alter a websites' content using atypical telephone. However, all the various content, webpages and thewebsite itself must already exist prior to the user placing a call tothe invention to manipulate such content. Each different item of contentmust be pre-supplied to the invention and assigned a unique ID numberbefore the invention will allow a caller to use that content. The callerwould then call the invention and specify the ID of the content thatthey wish displayed on the webpage. Not only does this two-step processseverely hamper the ability to quickly add new content to a webpage, butalso a computer and technical expertise is required to initially createthe website, webpages and content before the invention can even workwith these items.

Additionally, many systems restrict the ways in which a message can bereviewed, such as publishing the message in a non-standard format,requiring the reviewer to use special hardware or software to review it.For example, Adobe Acrobat™ is often used to publish documents on theInternet. Not only is the publisher required to specially encode themessage, the reviewer is required to obtain special Acrobat Readersoftware so they can review the document.

In addition, most systems that publish messages on the Internet do notkeep records of when and who reviews the messages. Such statistics canbe very helpful to people such as advertisers who want to know how muchexposure an ad got.

Additionally, most systems that publish messages on the Internet do notcheck the message for inappropriate content; they just blindly publishthe message. It is up to the users' [of the publishing program]judgement if a message should be published or not. The invention canoptionally provide an automatic publishing restriction means to preventthe publishing of a message containing prohibited content.

Also, most systems can not notify one or more people when a new documenthas been published. Instead, reviewers are required to constantly checkthe system to see if a new document has been published.

To truly allow virtually anyone to publish a message on the Internet, asolution must exist that is easy, secure and economical to both publishand review the message.

OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGES

It is a primary object of the invention to allow virtually any person ororganization to easily publish a message on the Internet that can besimultaneously reviewed by a mass number of people from around theworld.

It is a further object of the invention to allow a message to bepublished without special equipment or technical expertise.

It is a further object of the invention to allow such publishing to beeasy, secure and economical.

It is a further object of the invention to allow the published messageto be reviewed using a typical web browser.

It is a further object of the invention to automatically and quicklypublish a message upon receiving the message from a user without any preor post-action required from the user.

It is a related object of the invention to allow anyone with access to acommon fax machine to create and maintain webpages on the Internet.

It is a related object of the invention to allow anyone with access to acommon telephone to create and maintain webpages on the Internet.

It is a further object of the invention to help the user maintain andmonitor their website.

It is a related object of the invention to allow for posting of timelyinformation.

It is a further object of the invention to allow a user of the inventionto obtain statistics related to how, when and who reviewed a publishedmessage.

It is yet a further object of the invention to allow a message to bepublished on the Internet, from a broader range of sources and methodsthen are currently available today.

It is yet a further object of the invention to optionally restrictaccess to one or more published messages based on a time or dateschedule.

It is yet a further object of the invention to optionally preventinappropriate messages from being published.

It is yet a further object of the invention to optionally allow onlyauthorized persons to review a published message.

It is yet a further object of the invention to optionally notify one ormore people when a new message has been published.

It is a further object of the invention to automatically create webpagesthat will host the message and allow it to be reviewed on the Internet.

It is a further object of the invention to supplement information thatwas published using traditional publishing methods.

It is a further object of the invention to automatically submit thepublished message to one or more Internet search engines, so otherpeople can find the message based on it's contents or topic.

It is a related object of the invention to help the environment byreducing the amount of paper and energy consumed or wasted whenpublishing a message to a mass audience.

Additional objects, advantages and novel features will become apparentto those skilled in the art upon reading this disclosure or bypracticing the invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To achieve the foregoing and other objects, in accordance with thepresent invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, a messagepublishing system receives an incoming message over a network along withone or more identification signals. The message is received and the IDinfo is used to identify the sender of the message as an authorized userof the system. The message is converted from a first format to a secondformat, with the second format preferably being one or more webpages.The message is stored within a storage area, preferably an Internet webserver, and is retrieved from the storage area when a request for themessage has been received from a requestor. The message is thentransmitted to the requestor over a network, preferably the Internet.

In another aspect, a network message publishing system comprises acentral processor for receiving an incoming message over a network alongwith identification signals accompanying the message, for identifyingthe sender of said message as an authorized user of the system, and forplacing the message in a storage area. A network server retrieves themessage from the storage area, converts the message into one or morewebpages, and places the message in the storage area. When the networkserver receives a request for the message from a requestor over thenetwork, the network server transmits at least a portion of the messageover the network to the requestor.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a method of publishing amessage for a user. The method comprises the steps of receiving anincoming message over a network along with identification signals. Theidentification signals are used to identify the sender of the message asa valid user of the method. The message is received in a first format,converted into a second format, and stored in a storage area. When arequest for the message is received from a requestor, the message isretrieved from the storage area and transmitted to the requestor. Thetransmission of the message occurs over a network and the step ofconverting the message converts the message into one or more webpages.

In a preferred embodiment, the system receives a fax, audio, video oremail message, converts it into one or more webpages and places theconverted message on an Internet web server, making it accessible andreviewable by anyone using a typical web browser or similar device.

Preferably, the system would have a large number of users. Each user maypay a fee to use some or all of the system's features and services. Thecost to use the system could be based on a per-use basis, a limitednumber of uses for a given time period or unlimited use for a periodicfee. The system could even fax, email or call each user with an accountstatement or invoice amount when additional money is needed to cover anydebt in the users account or when a new billing period is about tostart. The increasingly popular Internet “free” business model could beused with the system. With this method, the systems' service could bemade available for free (or at a significantly reduced cost) to itsusers. Revenue is derived or supplemented by the sale of third partyadvertisements, such as banner ads, that are placed on one or morewebpages of a user and seen by each reviewer of that webpage.

In another aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system would allowanyone with access to a fax machine to create webpages from faxeddocuments. For example, a restaurant or deli could fax their dailyspecials to the system. The system would then convert the faxed documentinto one or more webpages and publish the webpage(s) on the Internet. Inessence, it allows the publishing and maintaining of an entire websitein a manner that is familiar to the user without the need for acomputer, special software or a high level of technical expertise.

Additionally, if the faxed document contains images, special imageprocessing can be performed on the document to convert the gradualshades of an image into a dithered or error diffused pattern that willallow a clear and more accurate reproduction of the original documentwhen it is sent as a traditional black and white fax. Software such asXelec Corp's ClearFax can be used to accomplish this function. However,such image processing may not be necessary if the fax device supportedthe new ITU-T30e color fax standard. This international format allowsthe faxing of a document in all its full color content.

In a related aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system would allowa user with a computer to create webpages in ways currently notpossible. Currently, a webpage can only be created with softwarespecifically designed to handle HTML (or a derivative format). If aparticular software program does not support HTML, it typically can notproduce webpages. The system makes possible the creation of webpagesusing virtually any software program that supports printing to a virtualprinter driver. A virtual printer driver acts somewhat like a phantomprinter. You can ‘print’ to it, but instead of the document actuallyprinting on a physical piece of paper, it is either handled or sentsomewhere in a digital format. Software products such as WinFax™ bySymantec act as a virtual fax printer device that allows the user to“print” to it, but instead of printing the document on paper, WinFaxconverts the “printed” document into a digital fax format and faxes thedocument to another fax device or machine that is designated by the userwhen the document print command was initiated. Because the system canpublish these faxed documents, the user can use virtually any computerprogram to create webpages by simply printing (i.e. faxing) theprograms' output to the system.

Alternatively, instead of faxing the document, the user could print toan alternate virtual printer driver that would convert the printeddocument into an intermediate digital/data format. This method couldalso allow the use of a color compatible virtual printer driver so theintermediate format will retain the original document's full colorcontent instead of being converted to black and white as with mostvirtual fax printer drivers. The resulting color intermediate formatcould be sent to the system using email or another data transfer methodthat doesn't require a faxmodem or a telephone line like WinFaxtypically requires. The system would then convert the intermediateformat into one or more webpages, ready to be viewed in full color byreviewers. This method would still allow a user to create one or morewebpages from any application by simply printing their document to thespecial virtual printer driver, even if their computer does not supportthe faxing of a document.

In yet another related aspect of the preferred embodiment, the systemwould allow a faxed document to be reviewed by a mass audience faster,less expensive, and more secure then current fax broadcast methods.Currently, fax broadcasting can take hours or days to fax a singledocument to a mass number of people. In addition, a telephone charge isincurred for each fax sent, which can quickly add up to a significantexpense. The system eliminates these disadvantages by publishing thefaxed document on the Internet. Cost is virtually eliminated becausethere are no additional charges to the publisher for each person thatreviews the document. The time needed to send the fax to multiplerecipients is also virtually eliminated because the document can besimultaneously reviewed by a mass number of people as soon as it ispublished on the Internet. The recipients could be notified that a newmessage has been published via voice mail, paging or an emailnotification. A notification may not be needed. For example, with aprice list message, a reviewer could simply check the webpage when theyneed a price. Because price messages are typically updated continuouslyby the publisher, the reviewer is assured that the prices contained inthe published message are current. In addition, it is unlikely that areviewer will view an old or outdated price lists because when each newprice message is published, it replaces the old price list. The systemcan also significantly increase the security of a fax message. Bydesignating a fax message as private, the system will only allow areviewer with the correct passcode to view the fax message.Additionally, the system can greatly help the environment by eliminatedthe use of paper when publishing a fax message.

In still another aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system makes itpossible for a user to create a webpage by simply sending an email tothe system. When the system receives the email message, it can convertany text, image, video or sound information within or attached to theemail into one or more webpages. In essence, the system allows thecreation of webpages using any device that can send email. A PC is notrequired to send email. Small personal digital devices such as the 3ComPalm Pilot™ allow a user to create and send email without a PC. Some ofthese devices even support wireless communications, allowing a user tocreate webpages from virtually any physical location.

In yet another aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system makes itpossible for anyone with access to a telephone to create webpages. Forexample, the system could record a restaurant owner announcing theirspecials for the day. The audio recording could then be published on awebpage allowing anyone to retrieve and play the audio message. Inessence, the system allows the publication of an audio message on theInternet without any special equipment or expertise.

In a related aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system helps toincrease a published message's awareness and reviewability by submittingthe message to one or more searchable databases so a potential reviewercan find the message based on its contents or topic.

In yet another aspect of the preferred embodiment, the system cansupplement or enhance messages or information that is published bynon-Internet methods. For example, a furniture store could place atraditional ad in a newspaper. The ad could include the phrase “Visitour website at ‘www.furnitureall.com’ for out full line of speciallypriced items”. Similarly, a person could place a small classified ad ina newspaper and mention in the ad that further details are available atthe owner's webpage. Using this supplemental method, the person placingthe ad will not only save money by being able to place a smaller ad, butthe potential consumer can easily review a full set of information thatotherwise would probably not be included in the printed ad due to costrestraints. Thus, both parties can benefit from the ease-of-use and lowcost publishing method that the system offers.

In a related aspect, the system provides features to help the usermonitor and maintain their website. For example, the system can send theuser statistics on when and who viewed the various published messages,allowing the user to ascertain which messages were popular and whichwere not. In addition, the user can assign a date and time schedule to amessage. For example, a coupon message could be configured so it willonly be available for viewing during its valid period, and automaticallybe made unavailable after its expiration date. In addition, the systemcan send the user a copy of a currently published message. This willallow the user to verify that the correct messages are being displayedwithout the need for a PC or Internet access. For example, a user couldrequest that the system send them a copy of the currently displayedspecials. The system could then fax a copy of the requested webpage tothe user, allowing them to confirm that the correct specials are beingdisplayed to the visitors of their site.

In a main aspect, the system allows a user to publish a message in itsnative format. No special preparation or modification to the message isneeded before it is sent to the system. The System will automaticallyconvert, process and publish the message so it can be reviewed on theInternet by a mass number of people.

In summary, the present invention facilitates the publishing of amessage to a mass audience in a manner that is quick, secure, economicaland familiar to the user. It is also the intent of the present inventionto advance the art for several dissimilar methods with a new, easy touse system and method. By allowing virtually anyone to easily,economically, and securely publish a message that can be easily reviewedby a mass audience, the invention opens a door once closed to manyindividuals. The disclosed invention incorporates these benefits, and assuch, makes it idea for use as a public service, such as for newslettersor lost animal type postings, because with this system, anyone caneasily post these types of items on the Internet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the connections of a messagepublishing system (MPS);

FIG. 2 is an overall flow chart of operation for receiving a message bythe MPS;

FIG. 3 is an overall flow chart of operation for retrieving a messagestored at the MPS;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of initial operations for answering a telephonecall;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of operations for interacting with a user's call;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of operations for receiving an audio message;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart of operations for receiving a fax message;

FIG. 8 is a flow chart of operations for publishing a single page fax;

FIG. 9 is an exemplary display of a published fax page;

FIG. 10 is a flow chart of operations for publishing a multi-page fax;

FIG. 11 is a flow chart of operations for publishing an audio message;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart of operations for publishing an email message;

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of the MPS;

FIG. 14 illustrates a more detailed block diagram of the input/outputsection.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiment of theinvention, an example of which is illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings. The term “fax” will be used interchangeable with the term“facsimile” throughout. In addition, the telephone network will be usedinterchangeably with the term PSTN (public switched telephone network).The authorized sender of the message to be published by the MPS willhereinafter be referred to as the user of the MPS, since they will beusing the services of the MPS to publish their message or otherinformation. The term reviewer and requestor comprise anyone (oranything) other then the above-defined user, and will also be usedinterchangeably to describe the one or more people (or things) thatrequest and review a published message. In addition, the generalizedterm of “message” will often used to describe the various information,data or other content that the user wishes to publish on the Internet.

With reference to FIG. 1, a message publishing system (MPS) 100 isconnected to both the Internet and the public switched telephone network(PSTN) 130 using various connections 110 such as PSTN lines, DID trucks,T1, T3, etc. The Public Telephone Network (PSTN) and the Internet 130have been shown as a single entity. This is because many Internet usersconnect to the Internet through a telephone line, and in many instances,the Internet uses the same communications pathways as the telephonenetwork.

Preferably, the MPS has multiple telephone lines (110 a in FIG. 14) tothe public switched telephone network (130 a in FIG. 14) and a highbandwidth connection (110 b in FIG. 14) to the Internet so that the MPScan simultaneously publish and receive requests for a large number ofmessages.

Although the Internet (130 b in FIG. 14) has been shown as a singleentity, it is actually a conglomeration of computer networks and is aconstantly evolving and changing structure. The system therefore is notlimited to the current structure or form of the Internet but encompassesany future changes or additions to the Internet. Further, the MPS isshown as being directly connected 110 to the Internet, such as throughits own node or portal. The system, however, may be practiced with anysuitable connection to the Internet, such as through an intermediateInternet access provider.

The message to be published can be sent to the MPS in a number ofdifferent ways. For instance, using a telephone 150, a user could placea call through the PSTN 130 to a number that is serviced by the MPS andhave the MPS record an audio message that is to be published. Similarly,a user could use a fax machine 120 to send a fax message through thetelephone network 130 to the MPS. A user could also use a computer 140to send a text message, audio message or an image to the MPS by emailingit through the Internet 130 to an email addressed serviced by the MPS.

Typically, the facsimile device 120 and the telephone 150 will connectto the MPS through the telephone network 130, and the computer 140 willconnect to the MPS through the Internet 130. Telephone and fax calls canbe made to the MPS using a network other then the telephone network 130.New network technologies such as Voice-over-IP, IP-Telephony, InternetTelephony, and IP-faxing have been developed to allow such activitiesover a data network, such as the Internet 130. Similarly, email messagesmight travel through the telephone network 130 during its transfer fromorigination to destination.

Although the fax machine 120, telephone 150 and computer 140 have beenshown on separate lines connected to the Internet/PSTN 130, one or moreof these devices could share a single line. While a single computer 140is shown in the figure, the single computer may actually represent alocal area network that is connected through one of the networks 130 tothe MPS.

With reference to FIG. 2 depicting the overall message receptionoperation of the system, a message transmission to the MPS is initiatedby the user at step 200, for instance by using the facsimile machine120, the telephone 150 or the computer 140. The incoming message maytherefore be a facsimile message, an audio message or an email messagerespectively.

Step 210 comprises a message check loop. Typically, the MPS needs tocontinually check for new messages because some message transfer methodsdo not send the message directly to the MPS. Instead the message isstored elsewhere and the MPS must retrieve it. A common example of thisoccurs with email. Since many computers are not always on or connectedto the Internet 100% of the time, it would be impossible to send anemail message directly to a computer that is off or inaccessible. Analternative destination that is on and always accessible is thereforeneeded to receive email messages when they are sent from a sender.Typically, this is the role of a network mail server. The mail server istypically running all the time so it can receive messages for its usersat any time. A mail server typically stores the users' messages untilthey are requested by the user. When it is convenient or desirable to doso, the recipient can turn on their computer, connect to the mail serverand obtain any email sent to them since the last time that they checkedtheir email inbox. Step 220 checks to see if there is a new message. Ifno new message is detected, step 210 is repeated until there is a newmessage. When a new message has been detected, execution jumps to step230 where the message is received along with any accompanying IDinformation.

To prevent an unauthorized person from deleting, replacing or posting anundesired message, it is preferred to have a security means to limit theuse of the MPS to just authorized users. This security scheme shouldalso prevent a valid user from deleting, modifying or adding to anothervalid user's published messages. If a security means wasn't utilized,then anyone could replace, delete or add a message to another user'saccount or website. The MPS implements this security in various ways toaccommodate varying balances between convenience and security for eachuser of the MPS. The identification and security means will herein bereferred to as I&S.

Typically, when a message is sent to the MPS, it is usually accompaniedby one or more identification signals. Some ID signals may indicate fromwhere the message was sent from, and others may indicate the desireddestination for the message. Some ID signals are sent before the messageis transferred, some are sent within the message itself or during itstransfer, and still others can be sent after the message is transmitted.The Telephone Company's caller ID signal is an example of an ID signaldescribes where the telephone call originated.

For example, if a user typically sends faxes to the NIPS from the samefax machine, a good balance between security and convenience can beobtained by using the telephone company's caller ID signal. The callerID signal is an example of a signal that is sent BEFORE a call isconnected, because the telephone company sends the caller ID signalbetween the first and second incoming telephone rings. When the MPSreceives the caller ID signal, it can both identify the sender (by doinga lookup for the account associated with that caller ID number) and befairly confident that the fax is from the associated user because thephone line for that user is typically within the user's premises.Because this particular security scheme is based on a sending telephonenumber and not a particular person, any employee of a deli can publishthe day's specials, not just the owner. This method will probably be themost often used security means because almost every telephone companysupports the sending of the caller ID signal, and most users willtypically send a message from the same telephone number.

A more secure means can be obtained by using DTMF ID tones. Using thismethod, the MPS would answer an incoming call and prompt the caller toenter some unique identification code(s) such as the users accountnumber and preferably a passcode before the MPS will allow the caller tosend a message. This method is a good example of an ID signal that issent after a call is connected, but before the message is transferred.This method offers high security but requires the user to perform theextra step of supplying the ID tones. However, this step can beeliminated by storing the DTMF ID tones within a speed-dial button of atelephone or fax machine so it could be automatically provided to theMPS in one step. This method would also allow a user to send a messageto the MPS from any location since the MPS is not relying on any IDinformation associated with a physical location of where the message iscoming from (as is the case when using the caller ID signal), but ratherfrom whom.

A less secure, but faster publishing method can be obtained by using thecalled number ID signal. This signal describes the number that is beingcalled, not the number were the call came from. Typically, when usingthis method, a different telephone number is assigned to each user ofthe MPS. When a call comes in from a user, the MPS can identify the userby what number they used to call the MPS. For an MPS with a small numberof users, each physical telephone line to the MPS can be dedicated to asingle user's telephone number. It would be a simple matter to determinethe called number by what physical line the call came in on, and whatuser has been assigned to that telephone number. However, thisconfiguration can become both inefficient and costly to dedicate a phoneline for each and every user when many users exist. In this instance,DID (direct inward dial) trunks would typically be used. Preferably, theDID trunks would contain many telephone lines that are not assigned toany particular telephone number. Each telephone line is assigned atelephone number only when a call comes in. This would allow a few DIDlines to handle calls made to a much higher number of differenttelephone numbers. When a call comes in, the telephone company routesthe call to one of the available DID lines and sends the called numberID signal to the MPS. The MPS uses this ID signal to lookup the accountassociated with the called number and thus identifies the user.

ID signals are also available when a message is sent over the Internet.For example, IP faxing is the term commonly used to describe the sendingof a fax through the Internet. Typically, with IP faxing, a fax is sentfrom an ordinary fax machine to a fax-gateway device locatedgeographically near the sending fax machine's location. The fax-gatewayconverts the fax into packets of digital data and sends these packetsover the Internet to another fax-gateway device that is locatedgeographically near the destination's fax machine. The destinationfax-gateway device converts the data packets back into a normal fax andsends it to the destination fax machine. Since both fax gateways arelocated geographically near their respective fax machines, the majorityof the distance that the fax data travels over is the relatively freeInternet, thus the cost for a long distance fax is significantlyreduced. Since the MPS is connected to the Internet, it can act as thedestination fax gateway device and receive a fax sent through theInternet. Using this method, the MPS can obtain ID information byextracting the source and destination information from the packets ofdata making up the fax. Similarly, voice-over-IP, IP-Telephony andInternet telephony are other network-based technologies that enabletelephone-like communication of voice and video over a data network,such as the Internet to the MPS.

Alternatively, a new protocol called IPP (Internet Printing Protocol)allows one computer user to print to another users' printer through theInternet. All the sender (person who is printing) needs to know is thedestination printer's IP address. Since the system is connected to theInternet, it can be configured to receive incoming IPP print jobs. Butinstead of printing out the document, it will simply publish thedocument as it would any other message. Data contained in the IP packetscan also be used to identify the sender of the message.

The system can also use ID info contained within the message itself Forexample, if a fax message contained a barcode or other opticallyreadable ID, an optical recognition program could be used to extract theID info from the fax message itself. In another example, OCR (opticalcharacter recognition) software can be used to convert the graphic textwithin a fax into computer readable ASCII text data. This ASCII textdata could then be searched for a particular keyword or phrase, whichwould identify the sender. In still another example, ID of the sendercould be obtained by text within an email message or even the name of anattachment to an email message. In yet another example, speakerrecognition technology (it identifies a particular person by theirvoice) could be used to identity the user by processing the users voiceeither as a separate security step, or by processing the actual audiomessage that the user recorded to be published. Alternatively, speechrecognition technology could be used to convert the users voice messageinto ASCII text data and then search it for keywords or a passcode toidentify the user.

Optionally, the extracted ASCII text mentioned above could also bescanned for inappropriate words or phrases. If such content is detected,the system could be configured to reject the message and not publish it.This additional content check could help prevent the misuse of thesystem. Alternatively, special image processing could be performed onimages that the system receives. Such processing could utilize patternrecognition to identify various items present in an image. Ifinappropriate or restricted items are found, the system could preventthe publishing of the message. Speech recognition could also be used toscan audio messages for inappropriate content. The system is not limitedto performing just these processes. For example, if prohibited contentis found, the system could simply remove that content from a message andpublish the remainder of the message. Each process could have specificcriteria of what is considered acceptable and what is not. The systemcould be configured with different criteria for each type of messageand/or for each user.

In even another method, the I&S could be based on an unapparentassociation, such as a time and date schedule. For example, a I&S systemcould be configured so that any fax received from a certain caller IDnumber before noon will be assumed to be one user and any faxes receivedfrom that same number after noon will be assumed to be another user.This scheme would eliminate the need for each caller to supply theiraccount number when they call in.

A combination of ID signals can be used to create additional balancesbetween security and convenience. For example, the called number IDmethod can be used with the DTMF method to allow a quicker and moresecure method of identification. With this method, the MPS can use thecalled number ID to identify the caller so the user does not have tomanually inform the MPS of their account number. The user would thenonly need to enter their passcode via DTMF to verify their identity tothe MPS.

It is preferable that the MPS system be able to implement a differentI&S for each user. This would allow each user to choose the I&S thatbest meets their particular I&S needs. Additionally, a user could havedifferent I&S schemes for each type of message that they may send to theMPS. For example, a user's account could be configured to require only acertain password within the subject text of an email message when anemail message is being published, but require a DTMF passcode when anaudio message is being published, and require only the caller ID numberfor publishing a fax message.

The system could also be configured to accept messages from an unknownsender, but not publish the message until a valid user OK's thepublishing of the message. This would allow a third party to create themessage and send it to the system for proofing by the authorized user.If the user OK's the message, they can instruct the system to publishthe message.

Additionally, the system could be configured to accept more then onepasscode or ID per user account. This would allow a storeowner to giveeach employee their own ID while still maintaining the one user account.With this configuration, it is preferable that the system keep audittrails of when and who used the account and what they did. This way, ifa message was posted by mistake, the audit trail can be used to see whatemployee published it.

Additionally, identification signals can be used by the system todetermine where the incoming message should be stored. When a userpublishes a message, the message is typically stored in the user'sstorage area. However, the storage location for a message could bedecided by other means. For example, the sender could inform the systemto save page 1 of a fax message in a particular storage area, but savethe second page of the same fax message into a different storage area.

The above are only examples of common ID signals. The system is notlimited to using just these signals. Any information accompanying,associated, attached or within a message may be used by the system toidentify the sender of a message as a valid user. Additionally,different ID info can be received by the MPS at different times. Due tothe large number of permutations that can exist by using differentcombinations of ID signals, methods and when they occur, it would beimpractical and confusing to describe them all here. However, it ispreferable that a caller not be allowed to operate the MPS or publish amessage until the MPS has sufficient ID information to identify thesender of a message as an authorized user of the MPS.

For example, lets say a users' account is setup to use the fax terminalID (an ID signal sent from the sending fax machine and usually set tothe fax machines' telephone number) for I&S. The fax terminal ID is onlytransmitted when the fax message is being transmitted. Because of thiscondition, the system could allow the reception of a fax message eventhough it has not identified the sender yet. After the fax message hasbeen received, the system would then check whether the fax is from avalid user. If it is not from a valid user, the fax is discarded.However, if instead of sending a fax message, the user tries to selectanother option, such as the users' preferences menu, the system wouldimmediately prompt the caller to identify him or herself. This wouldhappen because since a fax message has not been sent yet, the systemdoes not know who the caller is, and thus should not let the calleraccess the system until they have been identified as an authorized userof the system. In other words, the system will not publish a message orlet a caller operate the MPS until it has been determined that they arean authorized user of the system.

Alternatively, the security means can be provided by a company's ownLAN. In this example, the LAN could be configured to allow company useonly, thus limiting use of the system to just employees of the company.

Additionally, the system may not need a security means. For example, ifthere is only one user of the system, then all messages received cansafely be assumed to be from that one user.

With reference again to FIG. 2, at step 240 the MPS uses any IDinformation contained within, associated or accompanying the receivedmessage to identify the sender of the message as an authorized user ofthe MPS. If the sender can not be identified as an authorized user, themessage is discarded at step 250 and the system returns to step 210,waiting for a new message.

Once the sender has been identified as a valid user of the system, step260 publishes the message. A more detailed discussion of this step willbe discussed later with reference to publishing each type of message.

When publishing a message, it is preferable that the system allows theuser to specify whether a published message should be public or private.A public message can be reviewed by anyone requesting it. A privatemessage is one that should only be viewed by one or more authorizedpersons. When a message is designated as private by the user, a passcodeis required to review it. Typically, the user would specify the passcodewhen they publish a private message. Later, when the private message isrequested, the system will prompt the requestor to enter the passcode.If the passcode that the requestor entered is the same as the one theuser assigned for the private message, the message is then transmittedto the requestor. If the requestor did not supply the correct passcode,they are denied access to the message. A typical example of a privatemessage could be a wholesale price list. Using this method, the userwould publish the wholesale prices and inform all their dealers of themessage's passcode. Only those who where informed of the passcode wouldbe able to view the private price list. A private message could haveonly one passcode or multiple passcodes that would allow it to bereviewed. If a private message has only one password, anyone using thatpassword would be allowed to view the message. However, it may bedesirable to issue a different password to each potential reviewer. Bygiving each reviewer a different password, it can be easily determinedwho reviewed a message by what passwords were used to view the messageand who was assigned those passwords. Using separate passwords for eachreviewer would also allow one or more reviewers to be denied access to aprivate message by simply deleting their respective passwords from the“approved” list. There would be no need to reassign passwords to thealready existing approved reviewers.

Private publishing can also be used to replace or augment faxbroadcasting. As described previously, traditional fax broadcasting canbe time consuming and expensive. By using the system to publish a faxmessage, both the cost and the time required for multiple recipients toreview the message is greatly reduced. The cost is reduced becausemultiple, possibly long distance phone charges are eliminated by usingthe Internet to review the message. The time is reduced because themessage can be reviewed by thousands of recipients within a few minutesof when it is published. For example, when a user publishes a privatefax message, the system could instantaneously notify all the desiredrecipients that a new message has been posted (published). Eachrecipient could then review and/or print out the message at theirconvenience.

Step 270 notifies one or more potential reviewers that a new message hasbeen published. This notification could not only be used to alert one ormore people to the possibility that important information has beenpublished, but it could save a potential reviewer much time because theywould not have to keep checking for a new message, they would simplywait to be notified when a new message has been published and isavailable for review.

Typically, people would subscribe to a notification list associated witha particular user or message on the MPS. For example, customers of adeli could subscribe to the deli's notification list so they will benotified when the day's specials are published. Notifications could beperformed via email, paging, voice mail or many other ways. Emailnotification is preferable because it can simultaneously notify multiplepeople virtually instantly. Typically, an email listserver would be usedto handle the task of emailing all the subscribers on a user ormessages' notification list. In addition, most reviewers will likelyhave an email account because they will often review the messagesthrough the Internet using their computer and ISP.

With reference to FIG. 13, the MPS may also be connected to a pagingsystem 1300 through a network such as the Internet or the PSTN. Upon thepublishing of a new message, in addition to email and other notificationmethods, the MPS could page one or more reviewers by activating thereviewers' pager 1305 or other notification device. In this manner, oneor more potential reviewers could receive almost instantaneousnotification that a new message has been published by the MPS. Thepaging system is preferably one that transmits alphanumeric charactersso that a message may be relayed to the reviewer's pager, perhaps evenpart of the published message itself. The MPS would use the software1330 to generate a paging format such as XIO/TAP that is recognized bythe paging system.

In addition, the notification itself could contain a portion or thecomplete message that was published, serving as an alternate oradditional method of publishing the message. For example, the text of apublished email message could be sent within an email notification toreviewers, eliminating the need for the reviewer to view the message'swebpage. Each notification method may require the published message tobe converted into a format that is compatible with the notificationmethod. For example, if a fax message was published, OCR technology canbe used to convert the fax image's text into ASCII text data, which canthen be paged to reviewers via alphanumeric pagers. Another examplecould convert the text of an email message into spoken words usingText-to-Speech technology, and the resulting audio message could beannounced to reviewers via a telephone call notification or voice mail.

The amount and type of information that may be sent to the potentialreviewers may vary according to the capabilities of the notificationmeans and may provide a greater or lesser amount of information than theexamples provided.

It is preferable that a published message can be found when a potentialreviewer is searching for messages containing specific words or relatedto a specific topic. The system allows such search and retrieval byautomatically submitting the user's messages to one or more InternetSearch Engines. Search engines are used by most surfers to find webpagesor other content related to a specific topic of interest. Typically, anInternet user will enter keywords that are related to the topic ofinterest, into one of the many search engines available on the Internet.The keywords are typically chosen based on the high chance that theywill be included in a webpage of the desired topic, but at the same timehave a low chance of being included in a webpage of an undesired topic.For example, if a user wanted to search for webpages related to theocean, they wouldn't want to initiate a search that includes the word“The” because almost every webpage in existence includes this word andthus will be included in the search engine's “hit list” (results). Amore effective search could be performed by submitting the keyword“ocean”, or if they are really looking for information on lobsters, thenthey should submit the word “lobster” to limit the search engines'results to just webpages containing the word “lobster” in it. Step 280submits the published message to one or more search engines so apotential reviewer can find the message by performing a keyword or topicsearch of the message.

With reference to FIG. 3, after the MPS publishes a message, it is readyto be reviewed. One or more reviewers can then communicate with the MPSat any time and from any location in which they can connect to theInternet and request the message stored on the Internet server (1360 inFIG. 13). At step 300, the reviewer first connects to the Internet, suchas with a personal computer 140 (in FIG. 1) which may be connected tothe Internet in any suitable manner, such as through its own portal ornode or through some intermediate access provider. The personal computeris not limited to a single computer but may instead comprise a networkof computers, such as a local area network within an office.

Once connected with the Internet, at step 310, the reviewer accesses,with a hypertext web browser, the Universal Resource Locator (URL)associated with the published message. The reviewer may use any suitablehypertext browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer toaccess the message. The Internet server 1360 of the MPS receives therequest for the message from the reviewer at step 320. At step 325, thesystem checks to see if the requested message is scheduled to bereviewable. The reviewability of a message will be discussed later ingreater detail with reference to the various times at which thepublishing process may occur. If step 325 determines that the message isnot scheduled to be reviewable, then the process is routed to step 355,which reports the review failure to the requestor. If the requestedmessage is scheduled to be reviewable or does not have any timerestraint of being viewable, the process is routed to step 330.

At step 330, the requested message is retrieved from the user's storagearea. At step 340, the MPS checks to see if the message is public,meaning that the user (sender) of the message designated that it can bereviewed by anyone requesting it. If the message was determined to bepublic, the MPS sends the message to the requestor at step 360 throughthe Internet. If the message is private, the MPS at step 345 requestsidentification from the reviewer. The reviewer then supplies their IDand/or password. At step 350, the MPS checks to see if the reviewer isauthorized to review the private message. If the reviewer is found to beauthorized to review the message, the MPS sends the message to thereviewer at step 360. If the reviewer is not authorized to review themessage, the MPS sends a review failure message at step 355 to thereviewer. Also, if for any reason the request is invalid, such as when ahacker is attempting to gain unauthorized access to a message or thesystem, the request for the message will be terminated. Once the messageis received by the reviewer, the message can be displayed, played,printed out or saved for further review.

Since the MPS can receive messages of various types, such as afacsimile, audio or email messages, the MPS typically needs to determinethe type of message that is being received so that it can publish themessage accordingly. For messages received over the Internet or anotherdata network, this can be easily accomplished by the method used toreceive the message. For example, if a POP3 or other common emailprotocol was used to receive a message, the message would therefor be anemail message. If an IP fax protocol was used, the message is a fax andso on. Additional information accompanying the message such as theheader, packet data, data descriptors, and the actual format of themessage can also be used to determine the type of message. For example,if an email attachment is named “TEST.JPG”, the attachment is a JPEGimage file. As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the systemis not limited to any particular method used to identify the type ofmessage. Preferably, the MPS would continually monitor for new messagesbeing received over the Internet or other data network. When an incomingmessage is detected, the system would receive the message and publish itaccording to its type. These publishing methods will be discussed infurther detail with reference to FIG. 8, FIG. 6. and FIG. 12respectively.

While the MPS monitors for messages coming in over the Internet, it alsomonitors for incoming telephone calls. An incoming phone call could bean incoming fax message, an audio message or simply a user wishing toaccess their account information or preferences.

With reference to FIG. 4, when an incoming phone call is detected atstep 400, the MPS attempts to receive the caller ID info if it ispresent at step 410. The MPS then answers the call at step 420. If acaller ID signal was received and it is associated with a valid user ofthe MPS, the MPS may simply prompt the caller, at step 430, to entertheir passcode using the DTMF keys on their touch-tone phone. If thecaller ID information was missing or it did not match up to any knownusers of the MPS, the MPS may prompt the caller, at step 430, for theirMPS account number as well as their passcode. It is preferable for thesystem to use any information it can obtain about a caller, such as thecaller ID, to identify the caller and thus eliminate the need for thecaller to manually identify himself to the system.

While the MPS is waiting for the user to identify himself, it is alsomonitoring for a fax calling tone (CNG) at step 440. A fax calling tonemay indicate that a fax is being sent to the MPS. If a fax calling tonewere heard, the MPS would route the call to and initiate the faxreceival process (via circled “F”) which will be discussed in furtherdetail with reference to FIG. 7. If no fax tone is heard, the MPSattempts to receive the ID info at step 450. Step 450 would typicallywait a certain amount of time, preferably ten seconds, for the user toenter their ID info via DTMF digit key presses. Step 460 then checks tosee if the available ID information confirms the caller as an authorizeduser of the system. If the caller has been identified as an authorizeduser of the system, the MPS routes the call to the systems' main IVRmenu (via circled “M”) which will be discussed in detail with referenceto FIG. 5.

If a fax tone was not detected and the ID info was invalid or notsupplied, the system, at step 470, will repeat the identification promptat step 430. If after n attempts no fax tone has been detected or avalid ID has not been entered, the system jumps execution at step 470 tostep 480 which disconnects the call and returns to waiting for a newmessage. The specific number “n” may be three so that the call isterminated after three failed attempts.

With reference to FIG. 5, once the caller has been identified as anauthorized user of the NIPS, the main IVR (interactive voice response)menu is announced to the user at step 500, prompting them for aselection. The main menu would typically include the options for theuser to; 1) publish a fax, 2) publish an audio message or 3) enter theuser mode.

If the user presses the “1” digit, this would indicate that they wish tosend a fax message to the MPS for publication. Step 530 would detect the“1” digit and route the caller to step 535 which would announce variousoptions associated with publishing a fax message. A typical fax optionmay included prompting the user to select whether the published faxshould replace any existing message in the users storage area, or simplybe added to the rest of the existing messages for that user. The replaceoption would typically be used to update a message, such as a deli'sspecials, since the previous days specials may no longer be valid andshould be replaced with the current days specials. The add option wouldtypically be used to publish a new message without it replacing anyexisting messages. Preferably, when the user selects the add option, thesystem will prompt the user for a message ID to be assigned to this newmessage for future reference. For example, when the deli owner firstpublishes his breakfast specials, let's say he assigned ID #001 to thatmessage. Then, at a later time, he could replace that message with a newmessage by simply informing the system of what message ID he wants toreplace. Another option could let the user delete an existing message,such as a coupon that expired simply by entering the message ID of themessage they want to delete. Alternatively, the system could beconfigured to automatically assign an ID to all new messages and informthe user of the assigned ID by means such as faxing a listing of all theuser's messages along with their respective ID's. Additionally, thesystem could be configured to automatically delete a message (such as anexpired coupon) after a specified number of days after it was published.

Another fax option might allow the user to specify whether the faxmessage is to be public or private. If a fax message is designated aspublic, it can be reviewed by anyone requesting it. If a message isdesignated as private, such as a wholesale price list, the reviewer mustsubmit the correct passcode in order to review it. If the user selectsthe private option, the system could then prompt the user to enter thepasscode that would be required to review the message. Another optioncould allow the user to specify whether the fax should be rotated, suchas in landscape or portrait mode to allow for proper viewing of suchdocuments.

In addition, there could be an option that allows the user to request acopy of an already published message. When this option is selected, thesystem would prompt the user for the ID of the message they want a copyof. The system could then read the text of the message to the user usingTTS (if the requested message is a non-audio message), play the messageto the user if it is an audio message, or even fax a copy of the messageto the user for their review. Thus, allowing a user to confirm what isbeing displayed to surfers, without the need for a PC or Internetconnection. Other options will become apparent after reading thisdisclosure and practicing the invention.

After the user is done specifying options for publishing the fax, theMPS would instruct the user to start sending the fax document [to theMPS] that is to be published. The call is then routed to the faxreceival process (via circled “F”) which will be discussed in furtherdetail with reference to FIG. 7.

Returning reference to FIG. 5, if the user presses the “2” digit, thiswould indicate that they wish to publish an audio message. Step 540would detect the “2” key press and route the caller to step 545 whichwould announce various options associated with publishing an audiomessage. Options such as add/replace/delete and public/private asmentioned with reference to fax options could also be offered. Anotheraudio option may include prompting the user to select whether thepublished audio message should be in a WAV format, a Real Audio™ formator in both formats by creating two separate files of the same message.As mentioned previously, other options will become apparent afterpracticing the invention and reading this document. After the user isdone specifying options for publishing the audio message, the call isrouted to the audio message recording process (via circled “V”) whichwill be discussed in further detail with reference to FIG. 6.

To assist the user in replacing an old message with a new message, thesystem could track each message with a unique ID. This way, if a userwishes to update a message, they only need to supply the ID number ofthe message they wish to update. The system would then replace the oldmessage (with that ID) with the new message. The system couldautomatically assign this ID when a user publishes a new message, or theuser could manually assign the ID when publishing a new message. Forexample, the user could assign an ID to a message by using the DTMFdigits of a telephone, or by using Speech Recognition, the user can saythe ID of the message and the system will record that ID as beingassociated with that particular message. In addition, data within themessage itself could also be used to assign an ID to a message. Forexample, the contents of the subject field of an email message could beused to track the message. Additionally, the system could assigndifferent IDs to different portions of a message such as each page of amulti-page fax message. The ID number could also be used to deletecontent by simply providing the system with the ID of the content theuser wishes to delete.

There are many possible ways to assign a unique ID to a message or partof and the system is not limited to any particular method. Once an IDnumber is associated with a specific message or part thereof, it can beused to identify that content throughout the various operations of thesystem.

The system is not limited to just receiving fax or audio messages via atelephone call. For example, if the caller uses a videophone type deviceto call the system, they can publish a video message as simply aspublishing an audio message. Additionally, with the use of technologiessuch as voice-over-IP and IP-faxing, telephone-like calls can be placedover a data network, such as the Internet, just as easily as placing acall over the telephone network. Thus, the system is not limited to anyparticular way of sending a message to, or receiving a message from thesystem.

Other options for publishing a fax, audio or video message will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art after practicing the invention andreading this document.

If the user presses the “3” key, this would indicate that the userwishes to enter the user mode. Step 550 detects the “3” key press anddirects the caller to the user account menu at step 555. The system thenannounces the user menu to the caller, prompting them for a selection.The user menu would typically include options to allow the caller to: 1)Receive statistics related to who, how and when a particular users'message was reviewed, 2) Make a payment (if the MPS charges for itsservices), 3) Change the I&S scheme or passcode for their account, etc.Other user choices can be added and will be apparent to those skilled inthe art after reading this document. User menu option number 1 couldannounce to the user how many times and when a particular message wasreviewed. The count could be announced over the phone using pre-recordedspeech segments or with the use of TTS (text-to-speech) processing. Inaddition, the user could request to have the message reviewingstatistics faxed or emailed to them. The capability of reportingstatistics will probably prove to be very beneficial to users. Forexample, if many people review a particular message, the user whopublished the message might consider publishing more similar messages inthe future. In addition, it would be preferable to allow the user toreset the review statistics so when a new message is posted (published),the review statistics will correctly relate to the new message and notfor the previous message. Another option could allow the user to make apayment for the use of the system by entering their credit card numbervia touch-tone key presses. Still another option may allow the user toselect the Identification and Security means for each type of messagethey wish to publish. Other announcements, of course, could also be madeat this time. For example, there could be an option that would allow theuser to select the storage area for each message or part thereof.

Additionally, it would be beneficial for the non-PC user to be able toview one or more published webpages. This could easily be accomplishedusing the published messages' ID. For example, an additional user optioncould prompt the user to enter the ID of the message they wish toreview. The system could then either fax the one or more webpagesassociated with that message ID, or could announce the text from themessage's webpage(s) to the user via text-to-speech. By allowing theuser to review the published webpages, they can fully verify andmaintain their own website.

Any DTMF tones entered that are invalid for the requested prompt willresult in the system notifying the caller that they are invalid at step590 and replaying the main menu at step 500. If after a select period oftime, preferable ten seconds, no selection has been made, step 510 jumpsexecution to step 520 which checks so see if the number of main menureplays exceeded a selected count, preferably three. If so, the systemwill disconnect the call at step 525 and return to waiting for newmessages. If not, the main user menu is repeated at step 500.

It is preferable to have several keys be designated to have the samefunction throughout the interactive voice response system. For example,it is preferred for the “*” (asterisk) key to navigate the user to theprevious step or menu, and the “#” to signify that the user has finishedresponding to the current prompt, such as when the user is donerecording an audio message.

Other digits may cause the MPS to take additional actions. For example,the “*” digit is typically used to allow a caller to go back one menu inan IVR system. If the user would press the “*” at the main menu, thesystem could go back and re-request the caller to identify themselves.This would come in handy if a particular caller has more then oneaccount on the MPS and wishes to publish messages for each accountwithout having to hang-up and recall the MPS. Since the selection ofthese options with DTMF digits will be apparent to those skilled in theart, the details of this subroutine or subroutines will not be describedin further detail.

The system is not limited to the specific interactive voice responsesystem described with reference to FIG. 5. As discussed above, thesystem may be responsive to one or more DTMF digits other than thosementioned. Further variations or alterations will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art after reading this document and practicing theinvention.

With reference to FIG. 6, when the caller wishes to record an audiomessage, step 600 prompts the user to start their audio message afterthey hear a recording tone. The system then generates a beep and beginsrecording the audio message at step 610. The system continues to recordthe audio signals until; a) the system hears silence for a predeterminedperiod of time, preferably 5 seconds, b) the user presses the “#” or “*”DTMF keys, or c) the specified maximum recording time has been reached,typically 1-5 minutes. Step 620 checks to see if a DTMF tone was heardduring the recording. If one was heard, step 625 checks to see if it wasthe “*” key, indicating that the user wishes to abort the recording andreturn to the main IVR menu (via circled “M”) which was discussed withreference to FIG. 5. If the DTMF key was not the “*” key, step 630checks to see if it was the “#” key, indicating that the caller is donerecording the message. The “#” is commonly used to indicate that thecaller has finished entering data in response to an IVR prompt. Forexample, most credit card IVR systems prompt the caller to enter theiraccount number followed by the pound key. The “#” tells the system thatthe caller has finished entering the account digits, as an alternativeto waiting for the input prompt to timeout. It is considered a “I'm doneentering my info, now go act upon it”. If the “#” key was detected, orthe maximum period of silence has been exceeded, or the maximumrecording time has been reached, the system stops recording the messageand presents the caller with a menu of options at step 650, such asallowing them to listen to the message to make sure it was recorded asdesired, publish the message, or re-recording the message. If the DTMFkey was neither the “*” or “#” key, step 635 simply ignores acting uponthe key press and continues the recording process. In other words, anyDTMF keys that are pressed other then the “*” and “#” will simply berecorded as part of the audio message. This would allow a caller to mixin musical tones, using the other keys of a touch-tone phone, withintheir audio message. Step 660 checks to see if the user selected there-record option, and if so, execution is directed back to step 600 andthe caller is prompted to record the message again.

Preferably, the system will automatically trim any silence at the startor end of the audio message, as well as any “#” termination tone (if therecording was terminated using it), to create a more professional andefficient message size for storage. After the audio message has beenrecorded and approved by the caller, step 670 then publishes the audiomessage, which will be discussed in further detail with reference toFIG. 11, and returns the user back to the main IVR menu (via the circled“M”). As discussed above with reference to FIG. 5, other DTMF digits maycause the MPS to take additional steps. For example, step 650 couldinclude an option to abort the entire audio recording process and returnthe user to the main IVR menu. In addition, if an invalid digit ispressed, the prompt may be repeated for n attempts before automaticallyreturning the user to the previous menu.

With reference to FIG. 7, the MPS initiates the fax receival process atstep 700, which comprises the use of hardware and/or software to receivethe fax message from the user. A hardware fax device is typically usedwhen a fax is being received over a telephone line. Software protocolssuch as IP-Faxing allow a fax to be received over a data network withoutrequiring special fax hardware. Step 710 receives the fax and anyassociated or accompanying ID info. Common ID info was discussed indetail with reference to FIG. 2. If the fax arrived over a telephoneline, the call is typically terminated after the fax is received. Step720 then saves the faxed document into a storage area, such as theuser's storage area. Step 730 then attempts to use all of the availableID info for the fax message to identify the sender of the fax as anauthorized user of the system. If the system can not identify the senderof the fax to be an authorized user, the fax is discarded at step 740and the system returns to waiting for a new message. If the sender ofthe fax has been identified as an authorized user of the system, the faxis published at step 750, which will be discussed in detail withreference to FIG. 8.

The preferred method for processing and publishing an email message willbe discussed later with reference to FIG. 12.

In the preferred embodiment, the message is converted and presented forreview on one or more webpages. Webpages typically contain hypertextMarkup Language (HTML) code, which is the current defacto standard usedto create webpages on the Internet World Wide Web. Other markuplanguages exist such as XML (eXtensible markup language), RPC (RemoteProcedure Call) and DHTML (Dynamic HTML) that are also used for creatingwebpages. The system is not limited to any particular method used tocreate webpages, any language or method that can present the message onthe Internet for review by a requestor can be used.

Typically, a potential reviewer of the message will use a web browsertype software program or device to view the webpages containing thepublished message. Webpages typically contain a number of referenceswithin it. References are typically an “inline” type or “link” typeInline references are typically used to display the actual image orother data within the webpage itself when the webpage is displayed tothe reviewer. For example, if an inline reference is made to an audiofile, the audio file will automatically start playing to the reviewer ofthe webpage when the webpage is displayed. The reviewer does not have toselect the link to start playback.

Link type references (a.k.a. an anchor or hyperlink) allow the reviewerto access information or data contained in another file when thereviewer selects the reference. A reference can be both inline and ahyperlink. For example, a webpage could contain an inline reference thatdisplays a reduced size image of a fax page. And by having thereduce-sized image also be a hyperlink to a full size image of the fax,the reviewer could view the full size image by simply clicking on thereduced size image.

Each message, or part of a message (i.e. a page from a multi-page faxmessage), can be presented to a reviewer in various ways. For example, afax page image (or an image file attached to an email message) may beenlarged and/or reduced to accommodate the reviewers' viewingpreferences. In this example, the system could generate small, mediumand large size images of the message. The system would then createwebpages to host each size image and embed each webpage with referencesto the other size webpages. Using this method, the user or reviewercould configure the system to first show the medium size image when itis requested. The requestor could then select the smaller or larger linkfrom the medium-size webpage if they desire to see the message in asmaller or larger view respectively. There are many reasons forgenerating reduce sized images of a fax. For one, a smaller image filenot only requires less storage space, but it will take less time totransfer a small image as opposed to a full-size image. In addition, areduced size image may help facilitate the viewing of an image in asmaller window of a web browser by minimize the amount the requestor isrequired to scroll the message horizontally and/or vertically to viewthe entire image. Thus, smaller images may give a reviewer the jest ofthe message without requiring the reviewer to download the biggerfull-size image of a message. A full-size view permits the reviewer toclearly discern any comments or details that may be placed in themessage, which may not be possible from just a reduced image of themessage.

The webpages that host a message could be blank except for the message,or preferably, the webpage would contain other information related tothe message or user. For example, when the system generates a webpagefor a message, it could automatically insert some of the users accountinformation such as their company name, address, telephone number, etc.into the webpage along with the message. This would eliminate the needfor the user to manually include this information in each message theypublish. In addition, the system could insert the date and time that themessage was published to let reviewers ascertain if this is a newmessage or an old one.

Alternatively, in addition to (or instead of) displaying a message'sgraphic image on a webpage, the image could be processed by OpticalCharacter Recognition (OCR) software to convert the text contain withinan image into computer readable ASCII data. Similarly, a voice messagecould be processed by speech recognition (SR) software to convert thevoice message into ASCII text. The resulting ASCII text could be placedwithin the same webpage as the voice or image message or in a separatewebpage. Having the extracted ASCII text on a webpage can be verybeneficial. For example, it can allow a visually impaired person toreview a natively non-text message using a TTS (text-to-speech) screenreader program that reads aloud the extracted ASCII text. Preferably,the webpage containing the extracted ASCII text could be automaticallysubmitted by the system to one or more Internet search engines so when apotential reviewer performs a search for a keyword contained within ausers message, the corresponding user's webpage will be included in thesearch engines' “hit” list. When the reviewer selects the link on thehit list that corresponds to the users webpage, the users webpage willthen be presented to the reviewer. If the ASCII text is placed in aseparate webpage, it is preferably for the ASCII webpage to have a linkto the original voice or image message webpage, so the reviewer canreview the message in its original form, thereby eliminating anypossible errors in the SP or OCR conversion process. The link to theoriginal page could consist of program code to automatically display theoriginal webpage when the ASCII webpage is requested.

An example of some Java code that can do this is listed below: (whereF1P1.htmp is the original webpage)

  <script language=″JavaScript″> bName = navigator.appName; if (bName ==″Netscape″ ) window.location=″http://F1P1.html″; elsewindow.location=″http://F1P1.html″ </script>

By allowing the reviewer to review the original image of a message, thesystem offers the advantage of allowing the reviewer to see items suchas hand written text and/or illustrations that OCR software typicallyhas a hard time converting accurately.

In yet another method, the generated ASCII text could be hidden withinthe graphic image webpage using various methods such as using a verysmall font size, or having the same foreground and background fontcolor, or embedding the text within a meta tag. These methods willtypically allow the hidden ASCII text to be indexed by a search enginebut be invisible to a reviewer when the webpage is displayed. The ASCIItext from an image or audio message does not have to be placed on awebpage. For example, the generated ASCII words could be indexed andplaced into a database. A reviewer could then query the database andfind a particular message by searching for keywords that are containedin the message.

When more then one message (or pages of a fax message) exist for a user,the system preferably generates and maintains one or moretable-of-contents (TOC) webpages. These webpages would typically containlinks to all the messages (and pages) associated with a particular user,group of users or even a particular storage area. Each item in the listwould contain a reference to its respective message. A reviewer couldeither access a message directly if they know the direct messageaddress, or they can view a TOC webpage to find the message they areinterested in, select the link, and be presented the message they chose.

The system may not need to create a webpage each time a message ispublished. For example, a webpage may be created once that includes areference to the image filename of “1.GIF”. Then, when each time a newsingle-page fax message is received, the system could simply convent thefax page into a standard GIF image with the filename “1.GIF” and storethe image file into the users storage location that is addressable bythe already existing webpage, thus replacing/updating the previous faxpage. When a reviewer requests the webpage, the webpages's reference to“1.GIF” will cause it to be displayed to the reviewer. As you can see,the system may only need to update the image file “1.GIF” to publish areplacement fax message. Using this method, a user could maintain(update/edit) the static portions of their webpages independently fromthe system. The system would then allow non-technical users to updatethe webpage's main content with the ease of use that the systemprovides. Suffice to say, even if the system doesn't create a newwebpage for a new message (such as in the case when an existing webpagecan be used to host the new message), the message was still convertedfrom a non-webpage reviewable (or retrievable) format into a webpagereviewable/retrievable format.

A users webpage could consist of many parts, where each part can beupdated separately by the system depending on the destination and ID ofthe users message. For example, a user could publish a price listwebpage complete with a “today's special” at the top of the page. Then,by having each part (the price list and the daily special sections)addressable separately, the user could update the special withoutdisturbing the price list. For this example, the special section of thewebpage could reference the fax image file “1.gif” and the price listcould reference “2.gif”. So, when the user publishes a new ‘special’message, they would simply tell the system to update item #1.

The various ways that the system could publish and present messages toreviewers may be specified by the user or the reviewer. For example, theuser and each reviewer's′ preferences may be stored in the users'storage area. Alternatively, the system could use cookies (a type ofpreference/data file that is created and saved on a reviewers' computer)to save a particular reviewers preferences, such as the preferred imagesize for viewing a fax page. With this method, each time a reviewerrequests to review a message, the system may use the data contained intheir cookie file to display the message in the size and/or style theyprefer. These preferences could also indicate the default method topresent the messages or what messages should be included in thetable-of-contents (described below) webpages. For example, if aparticular reviewer does not have a means to play an audio message, thesystem could be configured to omit all audio messages from the TOCwebpage. Other options are also available so that the user or reviewercan custom fit the MPS to their own personal preferences or thereviewers' own computer. Alternatively, it may be beneficial to allowcertain reviewers preferences to override certain user preferences so asto allow the reviewer to review the messages in a manner that ispreferable to the reviewer.

After a message is received by the system, it is typically convertedinto a format compatible to the way it will be reviewed. Since thepreferred embodiment of the system is to allow the message to bereviewed on the Internet World Wide Web, the preferred conversion methodconverts the message into a one or more webpages. Each message type(sound, image, text, etc.) has its own preferred conversion method andfile format. Converting the message into a common format ensures thatthe message can be reviewed by a wide range of programs and devices. Forexample, it is preferred to convert each page of a fax message into aGIF compatible image file. The GIF image file format is preferredbecause most web browsers can display this image format natively,without requiring any additional software to perform this function.However, as new image formats such as JPEG 2000, PNG and SVG becomepopular and supported, another file format may be the preferred fileformat in the future. The system is not limited to any one particularfile format. Since most computers are capable of playing WAV files, thepreferred file format for audio messages is the WAV file format. Anotherpopular audio format is a streaming audio type format, such as RealAudio™. Streaming audio formats have the benefit of allowing a reviewerto start hearing the audio message almost immediately after it has beenrequested. With WAV files, the requestor must wait for the entire audiofile to download to the requestors' computer before they can play thefile. The details for these and other conversions will be discussednext. After the message is converted into a common file format, one ormore webpages are created to ‘host’ the converted file format(s) so thatthe message's file(s) can be presented to the reviewer when they requestthe message's webpages.

With reference to FIG. 8, when a fax message has been received, step 800determines if more then one page exists in the fax message. If more thenone page exists, the conversion process proceeds through point MP tostep 900 and will be discussed in further detail with reference to FIG.9. If the fax message contains only one page, it is extracted from thefax message at step 810 by using software such as FaxPlus™ by ElltechDevelopment. The FaxPlus software development kit (SDK) supports theextraction of one or more fax pages from a fax message into one or moregraphic image formats. Image conversion routines, such as provided byLead Technologies, may be used to convert a non-GIF file format to thepreferred GIF file format if a particular fax SDK does not support theGIF file format. Once the single page is extracted into an image format,it preferably undergoes one or more image processing procedures toenhance and/or enable it to be published.

One such image processing procedure is to straighten up the fax page.Typically, when a fax is manually sent, it may be tilted to the left orright in some manner. While the fax may still be legible, it may beundesirable or appear unprofessional to some reviewers. To correct this,special image processing can be performed such as ‘auto deskew’, aroutine provided by LeadTools' Imaging SDK, that will automaticallyanalyze an image and straighten it up. Additionally, faxes commonly have‘speckles’ or undesired dots within them. Other image processing can beperformed to remove or reduce these unwanted artifacts. In addition, animage process called trimming can be performed to a fax page to removeone or more sections from the page, such as the top header usuallypresent on each page of a fax. The fax header typically includes thesender's name, telephone number, the date and time the fax was sent,along with a page number. While this information may be helpful to mostregular fax recipients, it may be undesirable or unprofessional for areviewer to see such information.

Preferable, a fax message would also undergo image processing to convertit from a normally two-tone black and white image into an image with avarying gray scale. As is known in the art, a gray scale image of afacsimile page provides a better image than simply a black or whiteimage of a fax page. The image processing may comprise any suitablestandard contrast curve method of processing, such as anti-aliasing or asmoothing filter. The image processing may occur concurrently with theconversion process and is preferably performed for both full and reducedsize images of the facsimile In another example, a color fax may beconverted to a gray-scale fax to conserve storage space and reduce thetime required to transfer the image to the requestor.

Additionally, each page image of a fax could be processed by OCR(optical character recognition) to extract ASCII text data from theimage of the page. The extracted text may then be used to create atext-only version of the fax message and/or the extracted text could bestored in database that would allow the fax message to be found bysearching the database for particular keywords or phrases contained inthe fax. In another example, software such as Caere's OmniPage Pro 9.0can not only convert graphic text to ASCII text, but it canautomatically distinguish between the text and graphics portions of amessage and produce a rich-text-formatted (RTF) document that preservesthe layout and appearance of the original page. The resulting RTFdocument can then be converted into a webpage using. Using this method,a graphic fax page (or any message containing an image of text in it)can be completely converted into a searchable webpage with the text andgraphic images positioned virtually identical to the way they were inthe original fax image.

The exact image processes used by the system are not limited to thedescribed methods or software described. For example, an additionalprocess could convert the normally black and white color of a faxmessage into other colors such as a company's logo colors as per theuser's preferences. Other image processing and routines will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art when practicing the invention.

Once the fax page has been extracted, processed and preferably convertedinto a GIF image file, a webpage is typically used to ‘host’ the imageby including an anchor or reference to the image file so it is displayedwhen the reviewer requests the webpage. FIG. 9 provides an example of awebpage displaying a reduced-size GIF image of a sample deli menu.Typically, the main portion of the webpage will contain the publishedmessage. As is illustrated, the heading and footer of the webpage canprovide information about or related to the user or the message, such asthe users business name and contact info. In this example, the bottom ofthe webpage includes an anchor or link to “Zoom In”, allowing thereviewer to view the full-size image of the fax page when they selectthe link. In addition, information such as when the message was updated,page number, advertisements and a link to a company providing theservices of the MPS can also be included on the webpage. Many otheritems can be placed on the webpage and will become apparent whilepracticing the invention and reviewing other webpages on the Internet.

For the example in FIG. 9, the single fax page was converted into twoseparate GIF files, “F1P1-R.GIF” and “F1P1-F.GIF”. These files werenamed in a manner that provides information about them. For example, the“F1” part of the filename indicates that it is from ‘Fax Message #1”,The “P1” indicates that the file is Page 1 of the fax message, the “-R”and “-F” indicate the reduced and full-size images (respectfully) of thefax page. Typically, two webpages are used to display these images, oneto display the full size image and the other to display the reduced sizeimage. In this example, the webpages files are named “F1P1-F.HTML” and“F1P1-R.HTML” using the same naming convention as previous discussedwith reference to the fax images. Each of these webpages include areference to the other so the reviewer can switch between them byselecting the ‘zoom in’ or ‘zoom out’ references respectfully.

An example of the “F1P1-R.HTML” file for generating the sample webpageshown in FIG. 9 is shown in Table 1 below.

TABLE 1 <html> <head> <title>USERNAME</title> </head> <body> <palign=″center″><big><strong><big>USERNAME</big></strong></big></p> <palign=″center″>&nbsp;&nbsp; USERADDRESS<br> USERPHONE</p> <palign=″center″>LASTUPDATED</p> <hr> <p align=″center″><imgsrc=″F1P1-R.gif″ width=″580″ <br> <br> <a href=″F1P1-F.HTML″>ZOOMIN</a></p> <hr> <p align=″center″><ahref=″http://www.easywebs.com″>Click here</a> to find out how your faxmachine can create webpages</p> <p align=″center″><small>©1998-99EasyWEBS</small></p> </body> </html>

As illustrated in Table 1, the image file “f1p1-r.gif” for thereduced-size image is embedded into the HTML file. Also indicated isthat the anchor for “ZOOM IN” directs the MPS to the “F1P1-F.HTML”webpage which contains the full-size image of the fax page and theanchor for “Click here” directs the reviewer to the homepage of thewebsite providing the MPS service.

In the example shown, the first HTML file has an anchor for “ZOOM IN.”This anchor is defined as a=<A HREF=“F1P1-F.html”>ZOOM IN”</a> and willtherefore reference the second HTML file ‘F1P1-F.HTML’ when the reviewerselects the “ZOOM IN” reference. The second HTML file ‘F1P1-R.HTML’would have an anchor b for the “ZOOM OUT” and defined as b=<AHREF=“F1P1-F.html”>ZOOM OUT”</b> so it would direct the reviewer back tothe reduced sized webpage. Additionally, the ‘zoom in’ and ‘zoom out’references could be attached directly to the images themselves, allowingthe reviewer to simply click on the image to see the full or reducedsize image respectively. Example HTML code for attaching the full-sizewebpage link to the reduced-size image would be <ahref=“F1P1-F.HTML”><Img src=“F1P1-R.GIF” width=“580”<br></a>.

The system is not limited to any particular file naming method. Forexample, a deli owner may wish to have the first page of each faxmessage he published to be named “breakfast.htm” and the second pagenamed “lunch.html”. The names for the files could be dictated bypre-defined user preferences or by the user at the time they arepublishing the message. Technologies such as OCR and SR can be used toconvert the users' fax and voice (respectively) information into ASCIItext that can be used to name each file.

Alternatively, the name for a file could be specified by the contents ofthe message itself. For example, if the first line of text in a faxmessage is “Today's Specials”, OCR could be used to extract the titletext from the page and save the fax message as “todays_specials.html”.The text used to name the file does not have to be at the top of thepage. The user could specify any location on the page to use as thefilename, such as the footer or the largest size text present on a pagecould also be used. In another example, the user could dictate thedesired filenames via commands such as “filename=lunch.html”, in a emailmessage that they are publishing.

When the system needs to create one or more webpages for a message, itcould use a pre-defined set of instructions for creating the webpage(s),or it can preferably create the webpage(s) based on the users orreviewers preferences. For example, the system could use a templatewebpage as a basis for creating a messages' webpage. In this example,when a message is being published, the system could make a copy of thetemplate webpage, insert the new message into the copy and publish thecopy. By using a template webpage, the appearance of many messages canbe made consistent by basing them on the same template webpage. Thisallows the appearance of many messages to be easily changed by simplyediting the master template webpage. The system could be configured touse a single template for every user, or a different template for eachuser, or a different template for each message, or any number of othercombinations. In addition, the templates could have keywords embeddedwithin them that could signal the system to substitute the keywords withother information. For instance, in Table 1 the word “USERNAME” iscontained in the title of the example HTML document. The system couldthen scan a messages' webpage for this keyword. When the system comesacross this keyword, it would simply substitute it with the user'saccount name This way, the resulting webpage will contain the actualuser's name of “Joe's Deli” (as in FIG. 9) instead of the text“USERNAME”. Other methods for having the system automatically insertinformation when the webpage is being generated, such as inserting thedate the webpage was created, will become apparent to those skilled inthe art after practicing this invention.

Each webpage preferably contains anchors in addition to those relatingto “ZOOM IN” and “Click Here.” For instance, as mentioned previouslywith reference to email list servers, a webpage would preferably includea link to a message notification webpage that would allow a reviewer toenter their email address so, when a particular message is updated, theywill be notified via email. Other anchors, such as an anchor to theuser's main Table-of-Contents webpage, so a reviewer can be presentedwith a list of all the user's messages that are available for review,will be apparent to those skilled in the art and may also be provided.

After the full and reduced-size images and webpages for the fax pagehave been created, they are moved to the users' Internet storage area atstep 840. After this step has been performed, the fax message isavailable for review.

Reference to FIG. 10 will now be made when more then one page exists ina fax message. When it is determined that more then one page exists in afax message, step 1000 sets a software page counter variable X to “1”.Step 1010 creates a new table-of-contents webpage for the new multi-pagefax message. Step 1020 extracts the page contained in the software pagecounter variable from the fax message. This step is very similar inoperation to step 810 in FIG. 8 with the exception that it uses avariable software page counter instead of a fixed “1” for the pagenumber to extract. Steps 1030 and 1040 are similar in operation to steps820 and 830 in FIG. 8, with the same exception that they use a variablesoftware page counter to dictate what page number is being processed andin naming the resulting webpage and image filenames Step 1050 adds alink for the current fax page X to the fax messages' TOC webpage. Thislink is added to any existing links that may already exist in the faxmessage's TOC file so, for example, if a fax message has 5 pages, then 5links will be added to the fax's TOC page, one for each page. Thisallows a reviewer to not only see how many pages a fax message has, butthey can jump directly to any page of the fax message from the fax's TOCpage by simply selecting its respective link. Preferable, step 1040would also add links such as “TOC”, “NEXT” and “PREVIOUS” to each of thefax's′ webpages so the reviewer can easily navigate through the pages ofthe fax message. After the full and reduced-size GIF images and theassociated webpages have been created for fax page X, step 1060 checksto see if the software page counter equals the total number of pages inthe fax. If the software page counter variable does equal the totalnumber of pages in the fax, then all of the pages for the fax messagehave been processed and execution proceeds to step 1080. If the currentsoftware page counter variable does not equal the total number of pagesin the fax message, the software page counter X is incremented by one atstep 1070 and execution is looped-back to step 1020. Previouslydiscussed steps 1020-1050 then process the next page of the fax messageand so on. Thus, each page of the facsimile message is converted intoone or more webpages. When it has been determined at step 1060 that allpages of the fax message have been processed, the resulting files (gifs,full, reduced and Toc webpages) are then moved to the users' storagearea at step 1080, thus making the fax message available for review.

The system does not have to create a separate webpage for each page of afax message. Each fax page image can be placed within the same webpageto make navigating through the fax message easier.

As mentioned previously, the user's main TOC webpage will typicallycontain (among other things) a list all of the messages that exist forthe user. Typically, the main TOC webpage might be named “index.html” soit will be the default webpage displayed when a reviewer visits theuser's website. For example, if a reviewer does not specify a particularwebpage, such as by simply typing www.joesdeli.com, the web server willtypically default to presenting the reviewing with the webpage named“index.html”. Using this method, the reviewer can easily be presentedwith a list of available messages on their website. The TOC may groupthe messages by type (i.e. faxes, email, audio, etc.), sort by the datethe message was published, or any number of other arrangements that canbe specified by the user or reviewer. In addition, the user may wish tonot include certain messages in one or more TOC webpages, such asprivate messages that are protected by a password and meant to be viewedby certain reviewer's only. Other sorting and display methods willbecome apparent after practicing the invention.

When a message is received and published by the MPS, the MPS may updateone or more of the users TOC webpages to include a link to the newlypublished message according to the users or reviewers preferences. TheMPS may create different TOC webpages for each reviewer according totheir preferences. For example, one reviewer may wish to only see a listof the available fax messages and no email or audio messages.Additionally, the system may include a preview of one or more messages,such as a reduced-sized image of a fax message, within the TOC webpageitself. This would allow a reviewer to preview a message withoutrequesting it directly. In addition, the first sentence or a five-secondclip of an audio message may be used to preview email and audio messagesrespectively.

When the reviewer selects one of the messages on a TOC list, theselected message is transmitted to the reviewer's computer 140 throughthe Internet 130. The reviewer may also scroll through the TOC listingsif all of the messages cannot be displayed at one time on the reviewer'scomputer. A TOC webpage can contain a link to another TOC webpage, suchas the main TOC containing a link to a TOC for a multi-page fax message.Alternatively, the main TOC may contain direct references to each pageof a multi-page fax message, allowing a reviewer to review a pagedirectly from the main TOC webpage. Preferably, when a message containsmultiple sub-messages, such as with a multiple-page fax or multipleemail attachments, the MPS will create a TOC webpage for that message,listing the sub-messages contained in it.

The name for entries contained in the TOC are not limited to simpledescriptions such as “Page 1”, “Audio Message #2”, etc. For example, ifan email message had a file attachment named “setup.exe”, the Systemcould add an entry and reference of “setup.exe” to the TOC for a file.Using this method, the system could automatically create the TOC linknames based upon the actual name of the published message or attachedfiles. A still further option might allow the user to speak the title ofthe message they are publishing. With this option, the MPS could convertthe spoken title into ASCII text using speech recognition (SR) and addthe ASCII title to the TOC webpage. Alternatively, OCR processing couldconvert a section of a fax message, such as the first sentence, intoASCII text and use the ASCII text to name the message.

The TOC webpages would preferably contain other information for eachmessage, such as the date and time each message was published. Otherinformation, such as the number of pages contained in a fax message, mayalso be provided and will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Reference to FIG. 11 will now be made when publishing an audio message.There are currently two commonly used methods to send audio messagesover the Internet, the downloadable type and the streaming type.Streaming type audio formats such as RealAudio™ allow the requestor tobegin hearing the audio message almost immediately after they requestit. WAV type audio files require the entire audio file to be firstdownloaded to the requestors' computer before they can start playing theaudio message. The desired audio format may be specified by the user orthe requestor as per their preferences. When an audio or voice messagehas been received by the MPS, it is typically recorded to, or already inan audio file format. Various programming tools, such as Artisoft's™Visual Voice Tools, can convert an audio message from one format toanother. Step 1100 converts the audio to the desired format. Once theaudio message has been converted to the desired audio format, step 1110would create a webpage to host the audio message similar to the methodsdescribed previously with reference to publishing fax messages, butinstead of creating image files, a reference to the resulting audiofile(s) are placed within the message's webpage. Additionally, thesystem may generate both streaming and non-streaming audio files andinclude both references in the message's webpage. This would allow areviewer to select the audio format of their choice.

Preferably, an audio message would undergo processing to removeundesired artifacts from the message. One such processing could removeextended periods of silence, especially at the beginning and ending ofthe message to reduce it's storage requirements and transfer time. Inaddition, the volume of the audio message could be raised or lowered toresult in an optimal volume for requestors to listen to it.

An entry for the audio message would typically be added to the users'TOC webpage. Additionally, the TOC and/or audio webpage may haveadditional anchors or references. For instance, each audio message mayhave an anchor directing the MPS to a file that contains a shortsampling of the message. Thus, when the reviewer selects this anchor,the reviewer could receive the first 5 seconds of the message or someother predefined number of seconds. After the audio file(s) and hostwebpage have been created, they are moved to the users' storage area atstep 1120, making it available for review.

A process for publishing an email message is illustrated in FIG. 12. Thesystem receives the email message at step 1200. Typically, an emailmessage contains information indicating who the email is from, who theintended recipient is, the subject of the email and the body or contentsof the email. In addition, one or more files may be attached to theemail. These attached files can contain images, sounds or any other typeof data. Step 1205 uses all the available information associated with oraccompanying the email message to determine the identify of the sender,and if they are an authorized user of the system. Information such asthat contained in the “From”, “To”, and “Subject” fields could be usedto determine if the sender is an authorized user. To verify the senders'identity, a password or other verification information could be placedwithin these fields, the body of the email or in an attachment. Formaximum security, digital Signatures and encryption could be used.Digital signatures are increasingly being supported in various emailprograms such as Microsoft's Outlook Express, that allow a recipient topositively know who a particular email message was sent from. Inaddition, encryption can be used so only the indented recipient can readthe email message. The actual contents of the email, or any of itsattachments, can also be used to identify the sender as an authorizeduser. For example, if a particular email has an attached image filenamed “10023.JPG”, the 10023 could correspond to the account number ofthe user. Other methods to identify the sender as an authorized user ofthe MPS will become apparent to those skilled in the art afterpracticing the invention. Regardless of the method used, if the systemcan not identify the sender as an authorized user of the system, theemail message is discarded at step 1210.

If the sender of the email has been identified as an authorized user ofthe system, the system checks at step 1215 if there are any commandscontained in the email. If there are, they are extracted at step 1220and saved at step 1225 for use during the processing and publishing ofthe email. Typical commands such as “MESSAGE=NEW” could be placed in the‘subject’ field of the email to indicate that the email should be addedto any existing user messages and to not replace any. After thecommand(s) have been extracted from the email, execution is directed tostep 1230 via execution return path 1227. Execution return paths 1227,1242, 1257, 1272 are used to return execution of the email processing tothe next stage so that the email is completely processed. Step 1230checks to see if any audio files are attached to the email message.Audio file attachments may be in any suitable format such as WAV or VOX.If one or more audio files are found attached to the email, they areextracted from the email at step 1235. Each extracted audio file is thenpublished at step 1240 in the manner as described with reference to FIG.11. The system then checks to see if any image files are attached to theemail at step 1245. If one or more image files are found, they areextracted at step 1250. Each extracted image file is then published atstep 1255 in the manner as described for each fax page with reference toFIG. 10. The system then checks to see if any other files are attachedto the email at step 1260. If one or more files are found, they areextracted at step 1265 and published at step 1270 in a manner that willbe discussed next.

It is preferable for the system to allow a user to publish files otherthen image or audio files. This can be accomplished by; a) extractingthe file attachment from the email, b) saving the file in the usersstorage area, and c) adding a reference for the extracted miscellaneousfile to the email messages' webpage and/or the emails' TOC webpage.Using this method, files such as database, spreadsheet and program filescan be published using the system. To review or access one of thesemiscellaneous files, the reviewer would simply select the referencecorresponding to the file they desire. To allow a reviewer to discernone file from another, the title of the references listed on the webpagemay be labeled with the name of the file attachment. If more then onemiscellaneous files are attached to the email, they are extractedone-by-one and published in the manner described above and saved in theusers storage area. It is preferable that the system create a TOCwebpage if the email message contains multiple parts, such as multiplefile attachments. Each reference in the emails' TOC webpage couldcorrespond to each respective sub-message or other part of the email.The webpage used to list the references of the email may be a createdfrom a template webpage as previously discussed.

In addition, the system could publish video files that are attached tothe email in a manner similar to the way it publishes audio messages.The video files could undergo processing to convert the video to acommon format such as RealVideo™, AVI or MPEG. Additional processing,such as to optimize the video for smooth playback when reviewed onvarying connection bandwidths, may also be performed and will beapparent to those skilled in the art. References to the video file(s)could be placed on one or more webpages as discussed with reference toaudio file references. The resulting video file(s) and webpage(s) wouldthen be moved to the user's storage area, allowing the video message tobe reviewed.

Step 1275 checks to see if there is any text in the body of the emailmessage. If no body text is found within the email, processing of theemail message is completed at step 1280. If body text is found, it isextracted from the email at step 1285. Step 1290 creates a new webpageand embeds the extracted body text within it. The webpage used to hostthe body text may be created from a template webpage as previouslydiscussed. The system then moves the resulting webpage(s) and file(s) tothe user's storage area at step 1295, allowing them to be reviewed.

Information contained in the email, the user's preferences or thereviewers' preferences may be used to determine how the email and anyattachments are to be published. The user or reviewers preferences coulddictate other processes as well. For example, the users account could besetup so that any attached image files should first be processed withOCR to extract ASCII text and publish the extracted ASCII text insteadof the image. The command(s) extracted at step 1220 can not only specifysimple commands, such as if the message is new or an updated to anexisting message, but it can also specify complex instructions. Forexample, there could be a command that instructs the MPS on what webpagetemplate should be used for publishing each attachment or for publishingthe body text of the email. Other commands, processes and variationswill become apparent to those skilled in the art after practicing theinvention.

Even if a portion of a message doesn't undergo a conversion, the messagein its entirety has. For example, let's say a user attaches a GIF imagethat they wish to publish to an email message. When the system publishesthe email message, it may simply just create a webpage to host theattached image and not convert the image file at all. However, eventhough the image file was not converted, the over-all message wasconverted from an email compatible format into a webpage compatibleformat. In addition, if the user later wishes to update the imagemessage, they could simply email the system with an updated image filewith the same filename as the first. Because the new image filename isthe same as the original, no modification is needed to the hostingwebpage. The system could simply replace the original image file withthe new one, effectively publishing the new message.

Up until now, the conversion and publishing processes have beendescribed as occurring at the time the message is received by thesystem. This is commonly referred to as a synchronous mode of operation.Later, when a request for a message is received by the MPS, the messagehas already been converted into one or more webpages, so the MPS needonly retrieve the message file(s) from user's storage area and transmitthe message to the requestor. However, the publishing processes canoccur at other times as well. For example, when a message is received,it may immediately be stored in its native format, without conversion.into the users storage area. Later, when the message is requested, itcould then be converted and published after it is retrieved from thestorage area but before it is sent to the requestor. Alternatively, theconversion and publishing processes may occur after the message is sentto the requestor. When a message is published after it has been receivedand stored, the MPS is said to be operating in an asynchronous mode ofoperation. In this mode, the publishing processes are not immediatelyperformed when it is received. Instead, the publishing processes mayoccur as a result of some other action or condition, such as when arequest is made for the message or some other event or independentprocess.

The system could be configured to publish or make a message onlyavailable on a time and date schedule. For example, a deli owner maywish to fax in tomorrow's breakfast specials now, but doesn't want thefax to be published until tomorrow morning, the appropriate time for itto be made available. Using the scheduled publishing method, the deliowner is free to fax in the specials when it is convenient for him to doso without having to wait until the actual time the fax should beviewable. A delayed publishing schedule can also prevent accidentalpostings. For example, if the deli owner faxes on Monday the specialsfor Tuesday, but Monday night realizes that they ran out of one of theitems, he can resubmit an updated posting that will supercede theposting he submitted earlier. The reviewers would just see thelater-submitted posting on Tuesday and be unaware that the posting wasever corrected.

In addition, the system could be configured to selectively makedifferent messages unreviewable on a date and/or time schedule. Let'ssay a deli owner has different specials for each day of the week. Letsalso say that he submitted all the specials to the system and configurethe system to only display the special applicable for each day. Thesystem could then make all non-applicable daily specials unreviewable byrequestors by hiding the links to all the non-applicable specials, or bycopying the applicable day's special webpage to a default page such as“index.html” so the reviewer will be presented with the appropriateday's special when they visit the deli's website. Alternatively, thesystem need only maintain the references so only the applicable documentfor the day is referenced by the “Today's Special” link on the deli'shomepage.

The date and/or time to make a particular message unreviewable could beset by the user or automatically set by information contained in orassociated with the message itself. For example, the system could scan amessage looking for any date or time mentioned in it. If it finds a dateor time within the message, it could configure itself to display themessage at that date and time. In the example of “Today's Special”, ifthe message contained “Today's specials for Monday, Jan. 5, 1999”, thesystem could automatically display that message for only that day. Arepeating schedule could also be setup for any given message. Forexample, the message MondaySpecials.html can be configured to only bereviewable on Mondays.

The preferred mode of publishing a message depends on variousconsiderations and requirements. For example, when a message is expectedto be reviewed a thousand times for each time it is published, it may bemore efficient for the publishing processes to occur when the message isreceived as opposed to when it is requested. This may be preferablebecause the publishing processes would only need to occur once (when themessage is received), rather then the thousand times it will berequested. However, if a message will be updated frequently but reviewedinfrequently, it may be more efficient to publish the message when it isrequested. Technologies such as Microsoft's ASP (Active Server Pages)and CGI may be used to perform the publishing processes in real-timewhen a message is requested or as its being send to the requestor.Alternatively, it may be desirable to perform some publishing when amessage is requested, regardless of how many times it will be publishedor requested. For example, let us say a beachfront restaurant ownerwishes to have a weather report added to his webpage. It would beundesirable to immediately place the weather report into the message'swebpage when it is received, because the weather report would only beaccurate for the day the message was published. However, if the MPS isconfigured to add the current weather report to the message's webpagewhen it is requested, each requestor would then be presented with thecurrent day's weather report.

A message could undergo different publishing processes at differenttimes. Some processing may occur when the message is received but beforeit is stored, other processing could occur after it is stored but beforeit is requested, more processing could occur when the message isrequested but before it is sent to the requestor, and still otherprocessing can occur after the message is sent to the requestor. Forexample, when a fax message is received, it may be converted into itsrespective full and reduced size images. Later, when it is requested,the webpages to host the full and reduced images could be created on thefly based upon the user or reviewers preferences. Some publishingprocesses may even occur on the requestors' computer or reviewingdevice. In this example, the message may stay in an unpublished formatfrom the time it is received by the system to when it reaches therequestors' computer or reviewing device. Software (such as but notlimited to XML RPC Remote Procedure Call) running on the requestors'computer could then perform the publishing and/or conversion, allowingthe requestor to review the message. The point at which the publishingprocesses occur can be dictated by the user or requestors' preferencesand the system is not limited to any particular method or time period.

As described above, the publishing of a message can occur at anytimefrom when the message is received by the system up to when it is beingreviewed. It will also be apparent to those skilled in the art that thesystem is not limited to the particular file formats mentioned herein.Any suitable file format can be used. For instance, a fax page may firstbe converted into an intermediate format, or it may be converteddirectly into the GIF format. Further, instead of GIF, the facsimilemessages may be converted into JPEG, JPEG 2000, BMP, PCX, PIF, PNG(Portable Network Graphics), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), HTML, ASPor any other suitable type of file format.

The references or links that are placed within a webpage can be eitherinline, hyperlinks or both. For example, a non-inline reference to anaudio message will require the reviewer to select the link or referencebefore the audio file is transmitted to the reviewer. However, if aninline reference was instead made to the audio file, the audio filecould start playing to the reviewer as soon as they request the webpagethat hosts the audio message.

Regardless of when the publishing occurs, the message typically needs tobe stored in a storage area and available when a request for it is made.Preferably, an Internet server is used for the storage area because itis perfectly suited for storing the message, receiving requests for themessage, and transmitting the message to the requestor over theInternets' World Wide Web.

The collection of webpages for a user are commonly referred to as theuser's ‘Website’. In the preferred embodiment, the files for each userare stored in a separate storage area (or “directory”) assigned to justthat user. However, it may be preferable to publish messages fromdifferent users in the same storage area. For example, lets say thesystem is being used as a public service such as for posting messages oflost pets. It would be preferable to place such postings in the samearea so people have a one-stop place to review the various lost pets.The sender of a new posting could simply specify that their messageshould go to the area of ‘www.easywebs.com/lostpets’. This locationcould easily be designated by a number ID or other means. The systemwould then simply add the sender's message to any already existing lostpet postings in that location. This type of centralization makes it veryeasy for someone to review all the publications related to a specifictopic or category.

Each user storage area may also be a sub-directory of another storagearea. For example, if the main directory for the system is named“easywebs”, and its URL is ‘www.easywebs.com’, a user directory of“joesdeli” could then be located at ‘www.easywebs.com/joesdeli’. Usingthis method, each user would not have to register and maintain atop-level domain name with a global domain registration service such asInternic. Only the system's single domain name of “easywebs.com” needsto be registered. Each user subdirectory would then be managed by thesystem itself. The users' storage area, however, may be organized inother ways with the files for one or more users being stored in the sameor different directories or locations.

When there is more then one user of the system, an identification meansis preferred so the system can determine where and how to publish amessage based on the user's preferences or the message being sent. Themessages' destination could also be determined from informationcontained in, accompanying or associated with the message the user ispublishing. The various methods of identifying a user and the messages'destination location are explained in more detail throughout thisdocument.

When publishing a message, the MPS would preferably allow the user topublish it as a new message so it is added to the user's existingmessages, or publish it as an update so that it would replaced anexisting message. In addition, it is preferable for the system to allowa user to delete a message, such as a coupon message that has expired.

When a user wishes to add a new message to their already existingmessages, the files for the new message need to have unique filenames sothey will not overwrite files of any existing messages. The System mayuse a simple incremental search scheme to find a unique filename. Forexample, lets say two audio messages (audio-1.wav and audio-2.wav)already exist in the users storage area, and a new one is to be added.In this example, the system may scan the users' storage area, firstsearching for an audio file named “audio-1.wav”. If it is found, thesystem increments the filename and tries next scanning for the filename‘audio-2.wav’. If that it found, it searches for ‘audio-3.wav’ and soon. When the system comes across a filename that does not already exist,it can safely use that filename for the new audio message.

The various files for a message may be identified with any suitablefilename. In the preferred embodiment, the first part of the filenamedescribes the type of message, such as “F” for fax messages. The nextpart of the filename may be sequentially determined according to thenumber of messages existing for a user. If a message contains more thenone part, such as with a multiple page fax, it is preferably that thefilename also contains one or more digits describing the portion of themessage that the file is part of. For example, the filename “F1P1.GIF”would indicate an image file of page one of the first fax message. Eachfile of a message may be saved with an extension defined by the formatof the file. Thus, the files may end with an extension of “.GIF,”“.HTML,” “.ASP,” “.WAV,” or “.RA” according to the format of theparticular file.

In another example, if a user wishes to replace an existing fax messagewith a newer one, the system could simply name the new fax files withthe same names as the files for fax message being replaced, so theprevious fax files would be overwritten with the newly generated files.In the event that the previous fax message had more pages then the newfax message, the MPS could delete the excess pages of the old faxmessage. Alternatively, the MPS could simply delete all the files forthe previous message before saving the new fax messages' files.

The user could also specify the filenames for the various parts of amessage. For example, when using a telephone, the user could specify thefilenames using the DTMF digits of the telephone, or by using SpeechRecognition, the user can simply say the names of the files. In additionto filenames, the user could even dictate the title for a message thatwill appear in a table-of-contents webpage. Any hyperlink, file,directory, etc. can be named by either the user or be automaticallydetermined by the system.

Typically, to review a published message, a requestor would request themessage by some unique ID. From hereon I will refer to this unique ID asthe message's ‘Retrieval Address’. For webpages, this Message RetrievalAddress (MRA) is often referred to as a URL (Universal Resource Locator)address or web address. For example, to request the document “specials”that is located in the ‘joesdeli’ sub-directory of the domain‘easywebs.com’, you would enter the URL of‘www.easywebs.com/joesdeli/specials.htm’ into a web browser.Alternatively, if you wanted to access a message on a local areanetwork, the messages' address might be‘\\server\joesdeli\specials.doc’, which is commonly referred to as a UNC(Universal Naming Convention) address. The messages' retrieval addresstypically contains the address of the messages' storage location alongwith the messages' filename. However, the messages' retrieval addressdoes not need to contain both types of information. For example, theretrieval address of ‘www.easywebs.com/joesdeli’ contains only thestorage area information, but in fact it will retrieve the filename of‘www.easywebs.com/joesdeli/index.html’ because most web servers presentthe requestor with a default message if a specific message was notspecified.

A reviewer could access a portion of a message without requesting themessage's hosting webpage. For example, lets say the webpage“Specials.html” has a link to an image of the fax message named“F1.GIF”. Typically the reviewer would access the specials.html using aMessage Retrieval Address such as‘www.easywebs.com/joesdeli/specials.html’. However, the user could alsoaccess the fax image directly by using a MRA such as‘www.easywebs.com/F1.gif’.

The storage area would preferably contain the data indicating thepreferences of each user or reviewer. For example, when a facsimilemessage is retrieved by the Internet Server 1360, the Internet Servercould ascertain, from the data in the storage area, the preferred optionof displaying the facsimile message and would generate the appropriatewebpage(s) to those preferences.

The system, however, is not limited to the disclosed naming conventionbut can encompasses other conventions that will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art.

A block diagram of the MPS 100 is shown in FIG. 13. As shown, thetelephone network and the Internet 130 are connected to an input/outputdevice 1320 that in turn is connected to a central processor 1340 and anInternet server 1360. The number of telephone lines and the capacity ofthe Internet connection may be changed to any suitable capacity thatwould be necessary to accommodate the anticipated number of respectivetelephone calls and Internet activity that may be sent and received bythe MPS. The input/output device 1320 routes data back and forth betweenan open port of the central processor and either the telephone networkor the Internet 130. The input/output device may also route data backand forth between the Internet Server 1360 and the Internet.

The central processor receives messages and stores the messages in thestorage area 1350 in accordance with software 1330. Preferably, aseparate directory in the storage area is established for each userhaving an account on the MPS so that all the messages for a single userwill be stored in the same directory. It should be understood that thenumber of processors within the central processor is dependent upon thedesired capacity for the MPS. With a large number of users and/orrequestors, the central processor may actually comprise a number ofcomputers. The input/output device may then function to route theincoming user messages to an available computer within the centralprocessor.

A more detailed diagram of the input/output section is shown in FIG. 14.The input/output 1320 comprises a number of telephony and fax devicesfor each telephone line 110 a that is connected to the telephone network130 a. In addition, the input/output may comprise a modem or otherinterface suitable for connecting the central processor 1340 and theInternet Server 1360 to the Internet 130 b either directly 110 b orthrough the telephone network 130 a. The telephony devices 1410 providesthe ability to detect certain ID signals, play announcements, recordaudio messages and detect DTMF tones. The fax devices 1420 provide theability to receive other ID signals and fax messages. The telephony andfax devices are connected to a bus that routes the data and signals toand from the central processor. The central processor also comprises aconnection to the Internet 130 b, such as through its own node or portalusing an appropriate interface 1460 or by using a modem 1450 goingthrough the telephone network 130 a. The system, however, may bepracticed with any suitable connection to the Internet 110 b, such asthrough an intermediate Internet access provider. An Internet connectionmay also be establish through 130 c via the telephone network 130 a tothe Internet. The Internet connection allows the MPS to send and receiveemail, fax, audio, video and other files and data using a variety ordata transfer protocols. The Internet connection also allows theInternet Server 1340 section of the MPS to receive requests for messagesand send the messages to the requestors.

The central processor uses the various ID signals to identify the usersending the message and store the message in the appropriate storagearea. As discussed above, the central processor may comprise a number ofcomputers or, more precisely, a number of microprocessors with eachmicroprocessor handling a certain number of simultaneous incomingmessages or requests. The microprocessor may comprise any suitablemicroprocessor, but is preferably at least a Pentium based PC.

In addition to handling incoming messages and storing the messages inthe storage area, the central processor also coordinates the interactivevoice response system of the MPS. Many software development tools, suchas Artisoft's Visual Voice™, can allow even intermediate programmers tocreate sophisticated telephony applications. Based upon theabove-referenced flowcharts and the respective descriptions, theproduction of the software 1330 is within the capability of one ofordinary skill in the art and will not be described in any furtherdetail.

The Internet Server 1360 is connected to the central processor 1340,such as through a local area network, and has access to the storage area1350. The Internet Server performs a number of functions according tosoftware 1370. For instance, the Internet Server may retrieveunconverted message files stored in the storage area by the centralcomputer and convert the files into the appropriate webpage(s). Theconverted webpage(s) may then be stored in the storage area. TheInternet Server may also handle requests from requestors, which mightrequire the retrieval of files from the storage area and possibly thegeneration of additional webpages.

The software 1370 for the Internet Server would therefore incorporatethe flowchart of operations for generating webpages according to user orreviewers' preferences and the type of message to be published asdiscussed previously. Based upon the above-referenced flowcharts andtheir respective descriptions, the production of the software 1370 iswithin the capability of one of ordinary skill in the art and need notbe described in any further detail. The software for the Internet Servermay also include TCP/IP or other transport layers. Moreover, while theauthentication is typically provided through a hypertext transportprotocol daemon, the authentication process for private messages may besupplemented or replaced with other ways of authentication.

The Internet Server 1360 runs on a suitable operating system (OS), whichis preferably an operating system suitable for use on an internetserver, such as Microsoft's Internet Information Server (ITS). TheInternet Server has a number of application programs, such as the onesdepicted in the flowcharts discussed above, for communicating with thecentral processor and for accessing data from the storage area and forhandling requests for messages from requestors.

The Internet server is not limited to the structure shown in FIG. 13,but may comprise additional components. For instance, the InternetServer may be connected to the Internet through typical phone lines,ISDN lines, a T1 circuit, a T3 circuit, or in other ways with othertechnologies as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Furthermore, the Internet Server need not be connected to the Internetbut may be connected to other types of networks. For instance, theInternet Server, or more generally the network server, could beconnected to a large private network, such as one established for alarge corporation. The network server would operate in the same mannerby converting messages into webpages, receiving requests for the messagefrom requestors on the network, and by transmitting the message to therequestor.

In addition, at least one interface circuit could be located between theInternet Server and the central processor in order to providecommunication capabilities between the Internet Server and the centralprocessor. This network interface may be provided within both theInternet Server and the central processor or within only one of theInternet Server or central processor.

The system can receive messages of varying types from a plurality ofusers and can receive a message from more then one user at a singletime. The messages are stored by the MPS and can be reviewed by multiplesimultaneous requestors at the requestors' convenience at any time byconnecting to the Internet. The Internet World Wide Web is a constantlyexpanding network that permits a requestor to review a user message fromvirtually any location in the world. Since the requestor only needs toincur a local charge for connecting to the Internet, the requestor canretrieve or review a user message at a relatively low cost.

While the invention has been described with reference to a preferredembodiment (although various preferred embodiments of the presentinvention have been described herein in detail), it is not intended tobe exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed.It will be understood (appreciated) by those skilled in the art thatvariations may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of theinvention or the scope of the appended claims. One skilled in the artwill recognize that other features may be supported by the apparatus ofthe invention. For example, the software 1330 and software 1370 are notlimited to the exact forms of the flowcharts shown but may be varied tosuit the particular hardware embodied by the invention. The software maycomprise additional processes not shown or may combine one or more ofthe processes shown into a single process. Further, the software may beexecuted by a single computer, such as a Windows-based PC, or may beexecuted by a larger number of computers.

Furthermore, the requestor may be provided with a greater or fewernumber of options in reviewing or retrieving messages. The options arenot limited to the exact forms provided but may permit the requestor toreview or retrieve the messages in other formats. The options may alsopermit a requestor to print out two or more messages in one step insteadof having to request each one separately.

Also, the various menus provided to the user over the telephone may havea greater or lesser number of options and the MPS may accept responsesthat involve more than just a single DTMF digit. The specific DTMFdigits disclosed in the various menus are only examples and, as will beapparent to those skilled in the art, other digits may be used in theirplace. For instance, a “9” may be used in the place of a “*” in order toexit the menu or to return to a previous menu. In addition, the DTMFdigits may be changed in accordance with the user's personal convention.If the user is familiar with another IVR system, the user couldcustomize the commands to correspond with the commands used in theprevious system in order to provide a smooth transition to the MPS.

The MPS may restrict a user so they can only publish certain types ofmessages. For instance, a user may want the MPS to accept only facsimilemessages in order to reduce the costs of using the MPS. In such asituation, the MPS would perform an additional step of checking that thetype of message a user is sending is an authorized type for thatparticular user. If a message is unauthorized, the MPS may ignore themessage entirely or the MPS may inform the user that the attemptedmessage is invalid.

Moreover, the MPS has been described as having the central processor forprocessing messages and the Internet Server 1360 for handling requests.The invention may be practiced in various ways other than with twoseparate processors. For instance, the central processor and theInternet Server may comprise a single computer or workstation forhandling the incoming messages and requests, and for interfacing withthe Internet. The Internet Server may convert the messages into webpagesprior to sending the messages to a requestor. In addition, the centralprocessor may communicate with the paging system 1300 instead of theInternet Server. Additionally, as discussed above, the central processormay comprise a number of microprocessors for handling a large number ofsimultaneous users and/or requests.

The invention has been described as converting the messages intowebpages and transmitting the webpages over the Internet to therequestor. Preferably, the HTML format is used to create the webpages.The HTML format, however, is only one preferred format for exchanginginformation on the Internet and is actually only one type of a StandardGeneralized Mark-Up Language. As will be apparent, the invention is notlimited to presenting messages on webpages, any method that can presentthe message for review by a requestor can be used.

The system could be used to publish messages in combination withtraditional web publishing methods. For example, let us say a user has alarge website (that was created and is currently being maintained usingtraditional methods) and they sell products whose prices changeeveryday. Using traditional methods, it may be impractical or tooexpensive to have a webmaster update the webpage everyday to reflect thecurrent pricing. Because, even in a big company, there are usually onlya few webmasters, and they are unable to perform every single beneficialchange to the website. Many changes go undone because they become alower priority or lost in the red tape typical of large corporations.However, by configuring the system to maintain just the price webpage,the process becomes both easy and economical. Because the system can beused by a non-technical person, many more people can update the websitethat normally wouldn't be able to. In addition, the user can continue touse traditional web publishing methods to maintain the rest of theirwebsite. Alternatively, the system could be configured to simply convertthe received price list into a GIF image and place the GIF image on theusers web server. The user would then simply create a webpage thatreferences that GIF image. Using this method, the user has full,independent control on creating and maintaining the webpage that hoststhe GIF image that the system will continuously update.

The system is not limited to using a disk directory for storing theusers' messages. A database can also be used as the storage area. Then,when a request is received, the message can be extracted from thedatabase, published and presented to the requestor using any one of themethods mentioned herein. In should also be know that different portionsof the message could be stored in different storage locations. Forexample, the GIF images of a fax message could be stored in a database,but the webpage to host them could be stored elsewhere or created on thefly when the webpage is requested.

As mentioned previously, a message can be published in separate stepsthat occur at a different times. For example, each page of a fax messagecould first be converted into GIF images and saved into the usersstorage area. The hosting webpages could then be created on the fly whenthe message is requested. Technologies such as CGI and ASP can be usedto create webpages in real time. Using this method, up-to-the-minuteinformation, such as weather reports or stock quotes can be presented tothe reviewer along with the message. Alternatively, the system couldperform the message conversion after it is stored, but before themessage is requested. In this example, a background task couldasynchronously extract the unpublished message from the users' storagearea, perform one or more publishing processes, and place the fully orpartly published message back into the users' storage area.

The storage area and/or the destination of a users' message can bedictated by the user when they are publishing the message, by the users'default preferences or by the system itself. For example, the system maydefault to placing a published message in the user's default storagearea if the user did not specify another location when they publishedthe message. However, it may be preferable for the system to allow theuser to specify an alternative storage area when they are publishing amessage. Using this method, a user could maintain more then one webpageor account on the MPS. For example, a user who owns a deli may wantseparate breakfast and lunch menu webpages. The breakfast webpage couldbe designated as storage area number 1, and the lunch webpage aslocation #2. By being able to specify the storage location when they arepublishing a message, the user can choose which webpage to update.

The system is not limited to just using a storage area owned by thesystem. The system could publish a users' message in a storage areaowned or operated by a third party. For example, a user may already havea website hosted by a third party but wishes to use the system to updateone or more pages on their website. The system could be configured tosave the users' published messages to the third party's web server bysending the message to the third party server using a protocol such asFTP (file transfer protocol). If the third party server requires ausername and password before it will accept any files, the system couldbe configured to supply such info each time that a message file needs tobe transferred to the third party server.

With regard to the transmission of messages to the requestor, the MPScan permit the requestor to sample an audio message or to preview afacsimile/image message without requiring the MPS to transmit the entiremessage to the requestor. This is a significant benefit since thetransmission of the entire message would frequently tie up therequestors' computer or viewing device for a rather long period of time.Thus, with the preview or sample feature, the requestor can determinewhether they need the entire message transmitted to them. If therequestor does decide that the entire message needs to be transmitted,as stated above, the requestors' computer or reviewing device might bereceiving the message for a relatively long period of time. After theentire message has been received, the requestor then has the options ofviewing, listening, printing, retrieving, or saving the message. As analternative, the requestors' computer or reviewing device may insteadindicate the contents of the message to the requestor as the message isbeing received. For instance, with an audio message, the requestors'reviewing device could send the message to an audio speaker as themessage is being received. In this manner, the message would be playedin real time and the requestor would not need to wait until the entiremessage is received before listening to the message. In order to playthe messages in real time, the messages are preferably in a streamingformat such as the RealAudio (RA) format, which the requestor can selectas the preferred format for audio messages. In operation, the MPS wouldtransmit a webpage containing a reference to an RA file. If therequestor selects the RA file with the browser on the requestorsreviewing device, the browser will activate a program for use with RAfiles. The operations and functioning of this program will be apparentto those skilled in the art and will be available as a separate softwarepackage or will be incorporated within a browser program. The RA programwill request the RA data file containing the message from the MPS and,as the RA file is being received at the reviewing device, this programwill play the message in real time.

The system has been described as being able to store and transmit audiomessages. It should be understood that the voice message would probablybe the most often type of audio message stored at the MPS. The system,however, may be used with any type of audio message and is in no waylimited to just voice messages.

Video messages can also be easily published by using the same publishingmethods as described for audio files. Various formats for video filesexist such as Real Video, AVI, MPEG that can be published by the systemeither as file attachments to an email or transmitted over a networksuch as the PSTN or the Internet. For example, common video conferencingprotocols can be used to transmit a video message over a data network,such as the Internet. It should also be apparent that the system is notlimited to any particular method used to send or receive a videomessage. For example, videophone type devices may be used to publishvideo messages by sending a video message to the system through thePSTN.

It would also be preferable for the system to automatically createhyperlink references to the various files that may exist for a user. Forexample, let us say a deli owners' homepage includes the phrases“Breakfast Menu” and “Lunch Menu” and there are files named“breakfastmenu.html” and “lunchmenu.html” in the users storage area. Itwould be preferably for the system to automatically add a hyperlink tothe mentioned phrases so the reviewer can simply select the phrase onthe homepage and be presented with the respective webpage. Technologiessuch as OCR and SR could be used to convert the words in image and audiofiles into ASCII text and scan the text to see if any phrase matcheswith existing filenames. When a match is found, the system couldautomatically create a hyperlink reference between the phrase and thefile. Text of an email message could also be scanned for matchingphrases and filenames. In addition, the system could scan the textcontained in each webpage or a users' website and create hyperlinksbetween common word phrases. For example, if two users webpagescontained the phrase “Common Problems”, the system could createhyperlinks that reference each other. Using this method, a reviewerlooking at one webpage could easy see that another webpage contains thesame phrase even if the other file's name is not “common_problems.html”,and by simply clicking on the phrase's hyperlink, the reviewer ispresented with the second webpage that contains that same phrase. Withstill another method, the system could scan the various messages andextract the first sentence from them. This first sentence could be usedas the title for the message. The titles could then be added to a TOCwebpage so that each reviewer can get an idea of each message's topic.Using these methods, the system could automatically create hyperlinksbetween various related topics that will allow reviewers to navigatethrough a user's website without the user having to manually add thehyperlinks.

It is also preferable for the system to offer the reviewer the option ofre-organizing or re-formatting the presentation of one, or more messagesso they can be printed out or saved by the reviewer in a desired manner.For example, audio messages could be converted to ASCII text so they canbe printed out or saved in a memory area much smaller then would beneeded to save the original audio message, or because the reviewer doesnot have audio playback capabilities. Alternatively, a fax message couldbe resized so each page fits on a normal 8.5″×11″ piece of paper whenprinted out.

The embodiment was chosen and described in order to explain theprinciples of the invention and their practical application so as toenable others skilled in the art to utilize the invention and variousembodiments and with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated. The system is not limited to the describedconversion and publishing processes or to the particular software orhardware used in these processes. One skilled in the art will recognizethat other features can be supported by the apparatus of the system. Inaddition, it will also be apparent to those skilled in the art afterreading this document that the invention is not limited to anyparticular method used to send a message to, or retrieve a message fromthe system.

Finally, in essence, the invention allows virtually anyone toautomatically create a new website, complete with multiple webpages, byusing just a telephone or fax machine The user of the system will beable to modify their website at anytime using just a telephone or faxmachine. The system offers security so only the owner of a website canmodify it. The system also automatically submits the user's website tomultiple Internet search engines so other people can find the user'spublished messages.

I claim:
 1. A method for publishing a message portion that is free of aprohibited or restricted content, comprising the steps of: (a) providingcriteria to the message publishing system concerning acceptable content;(b) receiving a message for publication at a message publishing system;(c) processing the message with a processor at the message publishingsystem to detect any prohibited or restricted items in the message whichare outside of the criteria of the acceptable content; (d) responding tothe detection of the prohibited or restricted items in the message byusing the processor to remove the prohibited or restricted content; and(e) selectively publishing (a) the message or (b) only a remainder ofthe message which is free of the prohibited or restricted content, inaccordance with the criteria provided to the message publishing system.2. The method as in claim 1, wherein the responding step is doneautomatically in response to the action of the processor detecting theprohibited or restricted items in the message.
 3. The method as in claim1, wherein the processing step comprises executing optical-recognitionsoftware to detect the prohibited or restricted items in the message. 4.The method as in claim 1, wherein the processing step comprisesimage-processing to detect the prohibited or restricted items in themessage.
 5. The method as in claim 1, wherein the processing stepcomprises pattern recognition to detect the prohibited or restricteditems in the message.
 6. The method as in claim 1, wherein theprocessing step comprises speech recognition to detect the prohibited orrestricted items in the message.
 7. The method as in claim 1, whereinthe criteria provided to the message publishing system concerningacceptable content is dependent on a user of the message publishingsystem.
 8. The method as in claim 7, further comprising: receiving arequest from the user for the message, retrieving the message from astorage area; and publishing either the message or only the remainder ofthe message to the user over a network in accordance with the criteriaprovided to the message publishing system.
 9. The method as in claim 7,wherein the responding step is done automatically in response to theaction of the processor detecting the prohibited or restricted items inthe message.
 10. The method as in claim 7, wherein the processing stepcomprises executing optical recognition software to detect theprohibited or restricted items in the message.
 11. The method as inclaim 7, wherein the processing step comprises image-processing todetect the prohibited or restricted items in the message.
 12. The methodas in claim 7, wherein the processing step comprises pattern recognitionto detect the prohibited or restricted items in the message.
 13. Themethod as in claim 7, wherein the processing step comprises speechrecognition to detect the prohibited or restricted items in the message.